A superb weekend at this year's Isle of Wight kicked off our festival season in style. Great weather, big performances across the line-up, manageable queues and sensible scheduling all contributed to a great atmosphere across a mixed audience of festival goers young and old. Nice clean toilets helped as well.

Photo:Liz Murray photography

Friday saw the Main stage open with an enticing line-up, Everything Everything were well received by a big afternoon crowd. Jake Bugg put on a performance that belied his years, with his song "Lightening Bolt" being the standout track of his set, comparisons with Dylan came from all corners.

Ellie Goulding's performance had the Big Top crowd screaming for more whilst Emeli Sande's amazing voice and huge hits ushered in the evening on the main stage. Paul Weller meanwhile had the dads dancing with a selection of solo tracks and Jam material, "That's Entertainment" and "A Town Called Malice" going down a storm. 

The evening headliners were The Stone Roses, whose festival performance was even better than their show in Finsbury Park the week before. Ian Brown's voice held well and a hypnotic 15 minute version of "Fools Gold" was a festival highlight. The Roses' big tunes have the power to capture a huge festival crowd, and that's exactly what "Waterfall", "I Wanna Be Adored" and "I Am The Resurrection" did. They were a fitting end to a great first day's line-up.

Photo:Sara Lincoln photography

Saturday treated us to a lovely sunny morning that banished the fears of the rain and wind that had been forecast. Willy Moon appeared early in the Big Top with his energetic performance of "Yeah Yeah" going down well with an enthusiastic crowd, while Laura Mvula's eagerly anticipated performance fulfilled all expectations. 

Bastille was the star performance of the festival with a huge crowd at the main stage. Each track from their recent album was received by the crowd like an old favourite, they are clearly headliners of the future. Ben Howard drew a sizeable crowd with a more chilled out performance.

The Maccabees wound up the tempo playing songs from their three albums with the presence of a major festival rock act. Bloc Party's return to live performance was eagerly anticipated by myself and others as the sun set on the main stage. They rattled through their impressive catalogue of hits, Kele Okereke giving an engaging front man's performance, it was great to see him back.

The Killers headlined Saturday night and gave a stonking performance, fitting of the festival's history. Kicking off with "Mr Brightside" they ran through hits from all four of their albums, throwing in crowd-pleasing covers of "When I'm sixty Four" and a brilliant version of Tiffany's "I think We're Alone Now". The pace never dropped through the set and the finale of "When You Were Young" with fireworks and confetti was pure Vegas. The party carried on elsewhere: Sub Focus was drilling tunes through the Big Top, there were disco and hip hop classics belting out of the Hipshaker tent and Life's a Beach had the crowds dancing into the night.

Sunday saw a few hung-over faces peering out of tents to see if the rain had preveilead, but fortunately the clouds parted and the sun made an appearance by early afternoon. A more varied line up than the previous day gave us a great selection of eclectic moments. These included Republica's rendition of "Ready To Go" and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel getting the crowd at the main stage dancing to "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)".

Newton Faulkner brought out the sun and smiles on the main stage delivering his fantastic covers of "Teardrop" and "Bohemian Rhapsody". Kodaline enchanted the big top with "High Hopes" and "Love Like This" and a great mash-up music quiz at the Carling tent. The performance of the day for this reviewer was Imagine Dragons, a band bristling with energy and great tunes, the memory of their finale of "Radioactive" brought goose bumps to the skin.

Paloma Faith gave her usual combination of haunting voice and enjoyably bonkers chat while the The Script gave a feel good set of their classic material as the sun set, getting the crowd going at every opportunity.

Photo:Liz Murray photography

The masses were readying themselves for Bon Jovi's headliner slot and gave the expected stadium rock performance of their back catalogue of big anthems. As the evening closed in there was still time to nip to the Big Top to see Blondie close the festival, a nice scheduling touch that others could learn from.

The weekend was well organised, sunny, overflowing with great performances and with a varied selection of alternative music, comedy and cabaret. A superb weekend at Isle of Wight 2013, bring on 2014.

Review by Ben Wildman