Crowds throng sun-baked Glastonbury Festival

"Michael Stipe once said you shouldn't wear sunglasses on stage because it demonstrates disrespect for your audience," said Matt Berninger, lead singer of Brooklyn-based rockers The National.

"But the sun is shining into my eyes and is burning my corneas."

If anything defined this year's Glastonbury, it was the heat. Dry, uncompromising, and painfully affecting. The same, of course, could be said for Berninger's music.

After four days of constant walking, scorching and an inadvisably-low intake of fluids, the festival drifted into a haze.

The temperatures forced punters to jostle for rare patches of shade, seek treatment for heat stroke, and enjoy music when they could.

Like the English football team, whose schizophrenic performances bookended the festival, the music had trouble performing when it needed to.

Gorillaz, after a promising start, could not keep up a crowd buoyed by Dizzee Rascal's infectious energy.

Followed as it was by exalted music-makers Bobby Womack and Lou Reed, it was all a little sophisticated. While some watched Gorillaz agog, most others battled flat-lining attention spans.

Similarly Muse. Lead singer Matt Bellamy has never hidden his love of Fortean Times-inspired trivia teleported in from the cosmos. The band's increasingly concept-rich conceits make them less appropriate headliners than they once were. Their music, homogenised by Bellamy's incessant noodling, lacks the stand-out tracks that propelled them into the stratosphere here six years ago.

Much of the rest was triumphant, and fun, and slid speedily across the musical bases: huge amounts to see, but notables like Florence, the XX and Grizzly Bear gracing the more indie-oriented stages; Rob da Bank, Chase and Status and Fatboy Slim occupied the dance-slanted nooks. Femi Kuti and Dr John loomed over West Holts, formerly the Jazz/World stage, a musical mile from what people "really, really want": Kylie, Julian Casablancas, the Pet Shop Boys. Such breadth appeased any "tribes" represented.

Recent nay-saying that the festival neglects the young is insane. Teens were the most visible age-bracket on site. Boys wore Breton stripes, short shorts and head-scarves for the heat; short dresses for girls, the braver opting for jumpsuits and bikinis.

Away from the main stages, The Park, an addition overseen by Michael Eavis's daughter Emily, brought calm sophistication in the form of teacakes and a Helter-Skelter watch-tower with exquisite views.

Those craving a harder edge skipped to Shangri-La come night fall, where mini-arenas inspired by Blade Runner pumped out drum and bass until dawn. Those still on their feet hiked to Worthy Farm's hills, where people freely distributed incoherent murmurs and chemical catalysis.

Then, another sunrise, another rapid increase in temperature. Such heat comes rarely; memories of it will take longer to evaporate.

- INDEPENDENT