Fine dining out in a field of gold on a menu of musical delicacies

Reviews:Any event that courses with so much high-calibre music in so idyllic a location, prompts one impossible question. Which act did you have to see at this year's Electric Picnic?

The clear choice, determined by hours of exhaustive research from the first two days of the self-styled "boutique music festival", was Björk. Or The Good, The Bad and The Queen.

Or, as Jarvis Cocker suggested, none of the above. Cocker, one of the best orators in pop, articulated the festival's spirit. "It's just about people gathering together for a few days and living like they want to live. Tonight I will be walking among you."

For 32,500 people who have invested in the gilded escapism of a pampered lost weekend, such sentiments go down well. It doesn't hurt that it follows the intoxicating ballad I Will Kill Again, or that Cocker, essentially Leonard Cohen's libido in Woody Allen's body, almost characterises the festival: self-preening but modest, priapic but responsible, unpretentious but clued-in.

The line-up may be mouth-watering, but if Electric Picnic itself is not the star of the show, Electric Picnic has failed.

Late on Friday evening, the otherworldly Björk at least gives the festival a run for its money, her exhilarating electronica whirring in perfect sync with her ethereal melodies.

Her stage is a riot of colour and it seems she has come dressed in a rainbow.

Damon Albarn, meanwhile, is decked out like an Edwardian undertaker, his funereal chic even subsuming his string section. There can be a brooding tristesse in his super-group, The Good, The Bad and The Queen, but even if its combination of dub, rock and Albarn's whimsical carousels seem nostalgic, the music is perfectly of the moment.

Two years since they played to a cluster of hipsters early afternoon on the same stage, LCD Soundsystem take their rightful place as the kings of Friday night. North American Scum, which characterises Europe thus, "Where the buildings are old and you might have lots of mines", deserves an award for lyrical genius, and the disco-punk-funk lynchpin behind it, James Murphy, works his cowbell over the beat as though the instrument has finally found its virtuoso.

All My Friends is the saddest song you will dance to.

Slumping into the cinema tent at 4am to watch The Dark Side of the Rainbow, which synchronises Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to The Wizard of Oz, you might appreciate the cultural industriousness of stoners, or seek haven in Lost Vagueness, a lushly grimy shelter for burlesque reprobates, where a dominatrix nun might lick her rosary beads for you.

There is comedy, political debate, circus, performance art and the glorified flop zone of the Body and Soul arena. Overwhelmed by options, music in Electric Picnic can sometimes be an optional extra.

If you thought that MIA, the Sri Lankan firebrand whose music resembles a broken pinball machine impersonating baile funk, couldn't hack it live, think again.

If you thought that Bande Do Role could, you were sadly mistaken. MIA's Boyz and Galang were enormous and cocky. Bande Do Role seemed lost and shrunken.

For sugary nostalgia, Erasure's hits (Sometimes, A Little Respect) cannot be beaten. For grimy nostalgia, The Jesus and Mary Chain will not be superseded.

But for simple unadulterated joy we must turn to The Polyphonic Spree, a cultish assembly of sun-worshippers, whose manic euphoria recognises that even Nirvana's Lithium might be improved with a tuba and a flute.

The Beastie Boys (the most dapper rappers) are determined to be taken seriously. That is why we hear almost all of their peerless Ill Communication album, but are never once urged to fight for our right to party. Yet, party we do: seriousness and fun are not mutually exclusive.

Yesterday's Electric Picnic will be reviewed in tomorrow's arts page.