Mud. It odiously squelches in the bottom of your shoes, works its way up your legs and shock horror, can even end up in your hair courtesy of an inebriated bogan. Question is: do you let it ruin your day at a festival? No, never. This years V Festival was one of the muddy variety, yet an exceptional turn out and some of the best musicians in the business ensured that didn’t get in the way of a good time.

V Festival’s venue Avica Resort began the day a quagmire and ended it the same. Noticing the obscenely large stagnant pools of water surrounding and intersecting the festival grounds elicited a great deal of sympathy for the organisers, who doubtless got very little sleep in the lead up to gates opening. A valiant effort at getting things in check saw punters at the gates little more than an hour after scheduled. This cost only the first time slot acts a chance at an audience which combined itself later with an unfortunate but necessary forty five minute delay in the timetable.

Despite the timing related confusion, Robyn took to duties in opening ‘That Stage’ (don’t try make sense of the stage names, just roll with it) with an enthusiastic and reasonably full crowd. With a hyper dramatic thrust, the pint sized woman with a whole lot of attitude tore through song after song filled with grinding electro pop goodness. She more than capably set the dance standard for the day, which was often bizarrely close to the Peter Garrett flail though thankfully executed with a little more rhythm than our favourite sellout pollie. Konichiwa Bitches was an early show stealer, and seemingly every person in the predominantly female crowd enjoyed a singalong every bit as much as they did for both a stripped back beatless version of Show Me Love and the current radio frendly With Every Heartbeat.

Not to be totally outclassed however, Melbournian trio Cut Copy showed what local talent is capable of. Dan Whitford’s quiet voice hid behind a wall of synth noise but was distinguishable enough for hordes of Cut Copy fans fresh from the merch tents to show their support by raising their own for nearly every song; listening to the band’s new album, it shows that hiring DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy as a producer has left an indelible stylistic mark, with their always satisfying combination of pop and dance music amplified ten fold. The soaring arpeggio of Hearts on Fire is always utterly unforgettable but Lights and Music doubtless had the biggest impact with with the fans, it’s sing-along lyrics proving themselves more than appropriate for that moment in time.

Disco temptress Roisin Murphy proved that a sinuous, sexual prowl was was even more powerful when backed with some sleek electronic sounds; utterly devastating. A deep house instrumental intro courtesy of Roisin’s keyboardist/samplist set the mood perfectly for her stage arrival, adorned in a skin tight black and beige body suit and a very trekkie gold visor covering her eyes. The echo of Things to Make and Do era Moloko was undeniable but to most fans of her earlier band, Moloko often may as well have been the Roisin Murphy show anyhow and her solo show makes it obvious why. Mad costume changes, sexy backup singers and a disco pop sensibility is the key, most audible in the slinky Primitive. The more obvious lead singles from her recent album, the dangerously pop You Know Me Better and the set’s closer Overpowered sounded almost in it’s shadow, but didn’t fail to satiate the urges of a crowd baying for a boogie.

At a fair distance stylistically from the former act and all the other bands competing for attention on the day were the French chillout pioneers Air. And they blew away expectations with a set as hypnotic as it was engaging. Surprisingly for music which is more about the evocation of mood than physicality, the band retained a reasonably full crowd who were (down the front at least) dancing with total abandon whenever capable. The rest of us who were quite in need of a rest contentedly watched from the hill, huddling as a night chill set in. A short detour to catch a glimpse of Queens of the Stone Age revealed an intimidatingly large crowd and as the sound of Air’s Sexy Boy drifted across the hill it beckoned the sane back to somewhere more comfortable. Another earful of the nearly psychedelic wall of sound coming from the band elicited a pang of regret for not booking tickets to see Air at The Tivoli, where they would no doubt be even better in such an intimate venue.

While Duran Duran sparked into life on stage, anyone (I’m talking about looking at myself here) not familiar with their music would have difficulty relating to what was in essence a nostalgia booking. They may have sold many, many records but the fact remains that despite ‘That Stage’ being dominated by electronic pop music for the duration of V Festival and therefore being suited to their sound, watching Duran Duran felt like someone had turned the cheese dial up to eleven. They were must doing what they do and ‘horses for courses’ of course; but that’s why this one galloped else where.

Truthfully, it would have been sacrilegious to have left without seeing the Smashing Pumpkins. The little rocker in everyone was jumping for joy in the face of the alien-like black and silver caftan clad Billy Corgan. Like with Duran Duran, the nostalgia factor was looming largely over the show but unlike the previous band, the Smashing Pumpkins dismissed any of these questions systematically in a typical smile-free and near-gothic fashion. Timing my arrival perfectly somewhere near the back of a tightly packed crowd, I caught the band roaring into the beautiful Tonight, Tonight.

But as an ITM reviewer, I felt compelled to sniff out the bigger beats instead of the guitars, and who better to provide that than Sydney electro/techno duo The Presets. All the big tuneage from Beams was of course part and parcel of watching the show, but the icing on the cake was getting a big dirty serve of content from their forthcoming album Apocalypso which is going to be an absolute monster! The lead single My People is already a massive anthem for The Presets, but follow up This Boy’s In Love is showing all the hallmarks of a maturing sound that although it’s comfortable in either environment, is oriented more towards clubs with its more precise and lengthy structure. Sleek, refined but still catchy as hell it’s music as good for techno boffins as it is for the average festival or club punter. Look out.