Now in its sixth year Field Day returned bigger and better than ever, with an eclectic line up to satisfy the fashion conscious festival goers of London.   Due to the Olympics this year’s event took place a couple of months earlier, but judging by the size of the queues it had no impact on the numbers attending.  The crowd was mainly made up of 18 to late 30’s year olds escaping the Jubilee celebrations wanting a chance to catch some of the new up and coming emerging bands.

The issues regarding layout and lack of toilet facilities had been taken on board and significantly improved this year and the stage line ups all seemed to be running on time.

However there was an issue in the queue, where punters had not read the mail from the festival organisers advising them that they were not allowed to bring food into the festival ,there were a few disgruntled attendees who had packed picnics which were not allowed in. 

Unlike many other festivals that have branched out into non music activities, Field Day’s only concession is to have a ‘Village Green’ where you can relive the primary school ‘Sports Day’ sack racing, egg & spoon race etc.

The selection of food and drink was probably the best you can expect from a non foodie festival with a great selection street food and real ale (albeit that it took an eternity to get served). Plus if you were lucky you could get some free Jeremiah Weed or stop off for a cocktail or a Pimms.

With seven stages and a wide range of genres it was never going to be a straight forward decision of who to watch, but I prefer that to milling around for ages waiting around to see  the  more popular acts.

Django Django were performing on the Village Mentality stage, which in hindsight may not have been the greatest decision as there appeared to be as many outside the tent as inside.  Their performance with drum infused riffs which got the audience dancing and clapping both in and outside the tent, some of the highlights from the set include Default and WOR.

Danish electro band When Saints Go Machine arrived on stage a few minutes late but wasted no time with idle banter and performed a mesmerising set. The unusual vocals of Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild were not dissimilar to Anthony Hegarty

Spector ‘s Fred Macpherson is one of the more noticeable front men energetically using the full stage to his advantage, and building a great rapport with the crowd. It’s an uplifting set plus there were a few celebrities in the tent to watch them.

SBTRKT drew a large crowd to watch them relying on visuals as much as the music.  Early in SBTRKT’s set, there was what seemed like a loss of power ending the first track before it began. However this was swiftly remedied and an overflowing tent were treated to tracks including Drake’s remix of Wildfire and Living Like I Do .

Vaccines are ideally suited to festivals with their high energy punk infused pop delivers great three minute tracks, there appears to be a symbiotic relationship between the crowd and the band which takes their performance to higher plan . Their set included Post break up sex,  If u Wanna , Bad Mood, Nørgaard

The finale of the night was Franz Ferdinand and in true British style just before they arrived on stage it began to rain, which got heavier and heavier throughout the set.  Despite this setback, the band battled on, and delivered a set of crowd pleasers including Michael, Do You Want To and Ulysses plus some new material.  The set concluded with a rousing rendition of This Fire, to a rain sodden crowd who slowly dispersed into the night.

Field Day once again delivered a great day out, here’s to 2013.