Hop Farm festival
The Hop Farm festival has endured mixed fortunes to date. The inaugural event in 2008 was a major success thanks to a headline set by Neil Young, but last year's second-division indie-rock lineup and inflated ticket prices resulted in a disappointing turnout.
This year, Hop Farm's attempts to establish an identity for itself in the crowded summer festival season saw it secure the sole 2010 UK live appearance by Bob Dylan, and assemble a far more folk-hued support bill. This strategy pulled in a near-capacity crowd, although the dispiriting queues for beer and drinking water snaking across the field implied there is still some work to be done on the infrastructure.
Laura Marling looked like a pale wraith on the main stage in the scorching early afternoon sun, although her delicate harmonies and keening Joan Baez-like vocals were still powerful on the likes of Blackberry Stone. Pete Doherty appeared in unusually rude health as he ran through an acoustic set of the Libertines and Babyshambles back catalogues and led the crowd in countless renditions of Chas & Dave's Hopping Down on Kent.
Seasick Steve swigged from a wine bottle as he serenaded a fan with Walkin' Man and was heading for self-parody, although his self-effacing charm just about carried him through. Mumford & Sons have enjoyed a spectacular year so far and their stellar rise continues: the intricate finger-picking guitar and precision harmonies of new song Nothing Is Written had the crowd air-clapping as if for a stadium anthem.
Bob Dylan has been on his so-called Never Ending Tour since 1988, playing about 100 gigs a year. At this one, he might have been advised to issue the audience with earplugs. Dylan has never exactly been a conventional vocalist but nowadays the husky, broken rasp he emits scarcely counts as singing at all.
Crouched over a keyboard in a cowboy hat, Dylan veered back and forth through his legendary oeuvre and rendered it utterly impenetrable. On Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again he barked or yelped every third word, seemingly unable to keep a straight face at his own eccentric enunciation. Just Like A Woman appeared to be the work of a particularly untalented Dylan spoof act, while his grotesque vocal mugging of Simple Twist of Fate almost qualified as a situationist prank.
After a mercifully short set, he reappeared to grunt and yodel through Like A Rolling Stone and Forever Young and the crowd streamed away in stunned disbelief. It may just be time for Dylan to abandon his Never Ending Tour and put every one out of their misery.