Review

Peter Crawley reviews Saturday's line-up at the Electric Picnic in Co Laois.

The sun beams with benevolence (so does the crowd) and in the bucolic surrounds of Stradbally Estate, outdoor concerts make a serene last stand.

With a line-up so fresh and idiosyncratic, is there anything that could hamper Electric Picnic? The Matthew Herbert Big Band, in soldering together human energy and technological fragmentation, sets up the musical agenda for the day.

Herbert, the marvellous electronica producer, pits a 16-piece big-band to the circular patterns of digital manipulation to lead jazz into an electronic playground: swing and roundabouts.

Against the heartening, eccentric decorations of the venue - palm fronds in the cinema, a hanging garden at the Crawdaddy Stage, quirky garlands lining random tree boughs - Goldfrapp seem right at home. Their searing electro-pop and disco theatrics fizz through the jam-packed Electric Arena.

Equal parts grit and day-glo, elegance and sleaze, Alison Goldfrapp softens the hard edges of Train, Tip Toe and Strict Machine with disco ballad Number One and cyber torchsong Black Cherry.

Then there is the mesmerising performance of Arcade Fire, Québec's brilliant musical cortege. The band's debut album, Funeral, is the most life-affirming album released this year. Nothing makes you feel as awake as a wake; the tension of holding things together while everything is falling apart. Wake Up, Crown of Love, Tunnels and Power Out may have the intimacy of a whispered conversation but we sing every word (and often the melodies) back to the frenetic performers. Despite the halcyon qualities of the day, the communal exhilaration of Lies brings a sharp realisation: mourning becomes Electric Picnic.

By contrast, on the the main stage, the bludgeoning insistency of Doves' pounding anthems become steadily more numbing.

Norweigan dance duo Röyksopp (whose lacklustre new album could yet re-brand them Mïlksopp) bounce through their set in red shirts and skinny black ties in a witty tribute to Kraftwerk's Man-Machine.

Düsseldorf's automatons are as intimidating an influence on modern music as The Beatles: every advance in electronica is heavy with the knowledge that Kraftwerk got there first.

Their classics - Man Machine, Autobahn and Computerworld - still sound fresh today; an astonishing feat given the built-in obsolescence of electronica and the fact that these tracks predate Pac-Man.

Performing simultaneously on the main stage, The Flaming Lips may be the epitome of a festival band, frontman Wayne Coyne involving the crowd by hurling out enormous inflatable balls, urging on a fluffy menagerie of animal-suited dancers and raising his papier-mâché fists to the sky. But, paradoxically, the sterility and precision of a motionless Kraftwerk inspires greater affection.

Sunday's Electric Picnic line-up will be reviewed in tomorrow's features section.