Broadsheet round-up:

Alexis Petridis was down the front (or, at least, perched comfortably in the VIP area) for the Arcade Fire and the Guardian:

Variety of end-of-days scenarios suggested in lyrics seem oddly more pertinent when you're listening to them up to your knees in slurry, stood next to a disconcerting man in a jester's hat, sniffing amyl nitrate. In addition, certain lyrics take on a curiously prophetic bent given inclement conditions: "Come out of the rain!" exhorts Butler at one juncture. "You can do it!" Minor mid-set lull blown away by cataclysmic finale, involving mass singalong to Wake Up.

It seems that the BBC had focused quite heavily on the mid-set lull, then.

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello seized the Guardian blog to ruminate on festivals which have lost their soul:

As for festivals we haven't enjoyed playing: there was some horrible thing... I don't need to say which one, but I don't enjoy playing where all I see is fucking Miller Lite commercials in my face and tons of fucking cops.

I don't know whether Glastonbury is a travellers' festival still: that's not what I heard but I'm going to find out for myself after this. I heard that it's a land of rape and murder. Some experts, some reliable sources told me. But of course Glastonbury still has the ability to do change people's minds and alter their consciousness. You've just got to get the right bands and the right people will come, and they'll have the right reaction - liberation, catharsis, grabbing the tits of somebody else's girlfriend. You know - the usual!

The Telegraph has attempted to out-grump the Mail by sending Christopher Howse along to Worthy Farm. He's the "only festival goer with a tie", which means he can expect pete Doherty to seek him out to borrow it later on, then. Christoper hasn't fallen for the "traveller's festival" story any more than Eugene has:

Among the 30,000 cars in the car parks, there are plenty of Audis, Volvos and BMWs. Ten thousand, almost all young, came greenly by train and then chugged the last miles on dirty old buses.

"We're doing a dance degree at Greenwich," says my 20-year-old neighbour, pointing to her fair-haired friend. But now they're spending the weekend working in a vegan cafe, hoping to slip out to see Bjork. Bjork has been here before, she just can't remember.

If for some Glastonbury is joining the social season with Ascot and Henley, its style is still young and grungy. At Henley gentlemen must still wear ties. Here I spent 24 hours without seeing anyone else with one on. Ascot cocktail dresses and feather hats can look vulgar. Here the middle class come in muddy disguise.

Over in the The Times, Pete Paphides looks at what the bill tells us about the modern world:

Winehouse aside, it was a bill that rammed home the point that we are living in a postOasis age, where supersized indie bands trumpet the everyman values that allow their fans to live vicariously through them. Dundee’s bafflingly popular practitioners of indie dirges, The View, seemed to suit the worsening conditions. If only their fans’ chant – “The View are on fire!” – were true.