So (argh, I hate blogs that begin with 'so') I went to the Isle of Wight festival this weekend. It was three days of surprisingly sedate fun, with some amazing performances and wayyy too much food.

The joy of having an ex-housemate who lives on the island is that I got all the fun of the festival without having to go anywhere near a tent for the whole weekend (except to buy drinks). That meant fantastic hosts, a comfy bed, hot showers, pains au chocolat in the morning and cupcakes in front of Doctor Who in the evenings. All in all, a brilliant weekend.

Oh, and there was some music, too.

I was there mainly to see The Police, of course. Dad bought me up on Sting and The Police, so seeing them in the flesh was absolutely amazing after 25 years of listening to their music (I reckon there was a bit of 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' played to me in the womb). Of course, they closed the whole festival, so before the big finale I had three whole days of indie, pop and retro goodness. Here they are in a nutshell:

Friday:
Jumping around singing "this is NO BRIDGET JONES" to the Wombats was great. Their whole set was singalong heaven, and all the girls wanted the t-shirt because it had the same cute Wombat on it as the stage backdrop. It was also much fun doing mock scouse accents throughout. I feel I can get away with it because I'm technically 1/4 Scouse (or something like that).

The Hoosiers were as fun as we expected them to be. Drummers in Spiderman suits, lots of running around energetically, etc etc. Irwin (the brilliantly named lead singer) was a complete sweetie and I may just have developed a tiny little crush on him. The music...I could take it or leave it normally but live it held up to the competition.

KT Tunstall was...er, KT Tunstall. She tried to make nice to the audience by teaching them to body pop. Not a good idea when N.E.R.D are on next.

Ah yes, N.E.R.D. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, though I did dance lots to 'Nobody Nose' and 'She Likes To Move'.

And finally, The Kaiser Chiefs. Ricky wasn't on his usual banter-ish form, but the performance was still wicked. Even if you wouldn't sit down and listen to their albums, you can't beat them for crowd-rousing anthemic festival goodness. Nobody can resist the opening riff to 'Every Day I Love You Less and Less' when they're in a field with 50,000 other revellers. Fact.

Saturday:
The least appealing day to me because I don't like Iggy and The Stooges or the Sex Pistols. I'm not going to rant too much, but to me Iggy is just an old man with Jennifer Aniston hair shouting into a mic and gyrating on stage. The Pistols...well Johnny 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here' Rotten came on, insulted all the other bands, spouted out homophobic crap, called the Police 'bumholes' and insulted the sound man. He also sang a bit, but it was overshadowed by the silly, forced anarchy. I did not need to hear him talking about how Gazza is 'one of us'. Whatevs.

The only band I actually enjoyed on Saturday was The Zutons, who really rocked the crowd, and - surprisingly - the Sugababes, who played in the 'Big Top' tent. It was way too small for the huge crowd they drew and we ended up outside being pushed and shoved, but it was still entertaining. I wouldn't have them down as a festival act, but by the end a good few thousand people were bouncing up and down singing along to 'About You Now', including a fair few dads. This set also got the heckle of the week, some blokes shouting "Come on Geri, and Sporty...".

Sunday:
This is what it was all about for me - The Police, The Kooks, Starsailor, Scouting for Girls...all brilliant, and there was a surprisingly enjoyable set from acoustic-folksy bloke Newton Faulkner. I'd never really paid much attention to him before (he seemed a bit dreary even for my American teen drama soundtrack record collection) but he really won over the crowd. He had amazing skills with the guitar, a little 'dance routine' to go with one of the songs, and treated us to an absolutely fantastic cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Scouting for Girls were really popular, with everyone singing along to Elvis Isn't Dead and She's So Lovely, but what I really adored is that they sang the two real 80s child songs from the album - The Mountains of Navaho (complete with complete He-Man intro) and Michaela Strachan. I'd forgotten how much I loved their album when I listened to it incessantly about six months ago.

Luke from The Kooks was even more monosyllabic and slurred than usual, leading me to ask the others if he was excited, stoned, drunk or all three. Whatever, he still managed a pitch perfect performance. They did more stuff from the new album than I expected, but still managed to sneak in my fave - Eddie's Gun - and get everyone dancing to She Moves in Her Own Way.

And then The Police. So good I think they deserve a post all of their own tomorrow...