I’ll happily admit that my main interest was in Pink Floyd. We were towards the back of the crowd where there was more space, and for the earlier part of the show I spent some time just stretched out listening rather than watching. In some cases tolerating rather than enjoying. I know it was all for a good cause, but I’m trying to be objective about the music in this post.

Paul McCartney/U2
We missed most of this.

Coldplay
I am not a big fan of Coldplay. They have never really excited me, but after seeing them play at Glastonbury on TV I liked them a bit more. They seem to suit big crowds. Seeing Richard Ashcroft join them for Bittersweet Symphony was worthwhile.

Elton John
Played a couple of great classic songs – the Bitch is Back and Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting. Real crowd-pleasers. Then he was joined by Pete Doherty for Children of the Revolution. I can’t see what the fuss about Doherty is for. The Libertines did one or two OK songs, but he is a bit of a twat, and ruined the song.

Dido
I really don’t like Dido anyway, and she sounded worse than ever at Live 8. She sounded very flat singing her first song, and did not sing the Neneh Cherry part of 7 Seconds very well. But fair play to her for having a go and inviting a decent African artist to play with her.

Stereophonics
Decent run-of-the-mill stadium rock.

REM
One of the highlights for me, Michael Stipe might be going a bit over the top with the eye liner but they really rock.

Ms Dynamite
Her first song was OK. Not too sure about how well her version of Redemption Song worked, but full marks for choice of song.

Keane
Not bad. Considering they only have one instrument (plus drums) they fill a space with sound very well. Big, singalong anthems. Not very exciting though.

Travis
Just like Keane and Coldplay, they were competent and pleasant without really getting exciting.

Bob Geldof
Nice to see him play. Nice that he only did one song, which everyone knows.

Annie Lennox
I never liked her much in the first place, and since then she has gone off a bit. I’m not sure why she is still regarded as a big name. Sweet Dreams is a good song though and it went down well.

UB40
I’m not a big fan of UB40, preferring my reggae to be Jamaican, but I enjoyed this. Reggae is so well-suited to a day out in the park, and I liked seeing the culture clash of bringing in a load of Birmingham-asian drummers.

Snoop Dogg
Live rap is so often just a load of blokes shouting over each other, but Snoop was a lot more tuneful than that. He has a few good songs behind him and did them all here. One of the highlights of the show for me.

Razorlight
Not a bad set. Out of all the new bands coming up in the UK I might have preferred to see Kaiser Chiefs, Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand, Kasabian or Bloc Party, but this was OK. Not a lot more exciting than Coldplay though.

Madonna
A great choir-assisted version of Like A Prayer and a couple of her newer hits, made it one of the better sets,

Snow Patrol
Just like Coldplay, Keane or Travis. Not bad but not special.

The Killers
Did a version of All These Things That I’ve Done which was almost as good as how they played it at Glastonbury. Even after the whole show people were still humming ‘I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier’. But then they went off after just one song – no Mr Brightside, no Smile Like You Mean It, no Somebody Told Me.

Joss Stone
Everyone makes a lot of her age, and it really is remarkable how well she performs serious, grown-up music at 18 – perhaps no more remarkable than the lad from the Commitments though, and what happened to him? It might have been better if she had turned up as a guest to sing with someone else, like she did with James Brown on TV the other night.

Scissor Sisters
Fantastic. A shame they didn’t play Comfortably Numb (just to see what Roger & Dave thought of it) but they played two hits and a new song which was instantly likeable.

Velvet Revolver
Average heavy metal. Slash could do so much better. Cuoldn’t help wondering why they bothered ditching Axl Rose if they were only going to to go for another unstable singer with poor dress sense.

Sting
Wisely he chose to play some old Police songs instead of his solo work, and this went down well. I enjoyed it a lot, even though Sting was one of the acts I expected to sleep through.

Mariah Carey
What is she like? She seemed to spent half the set demanding stuff from her entourage. The fact I was dancing at this point owed more to the the fact it was cold and I had given J my jacket than to the music. You have to feel sorry for her because just before she came on, Bob Geldof announced that the show was running over and people with long journeys to make might want to think about leaving. Hardly the ideal build up for an artist. Mind you, I have never seen anyone clear a feild so quickly. At the back we were almost trampled as a few thousand people decided to leave when she started singing.

Robbie Williams
I don’t think you have to like Robbie to admit that he is a great entertainer. He started with a cheeky version of We Will Rock You, and ended with the crowd-pleasing Angels. The number of people who left the moment his set ended showed who a lot of the audience were really there for.

The Who
With no Keith Moon and no John Entwistle its not really the Who, but it seemed like the sound was turned up for a cracking run-through of Who Are You and Won’t Get Fooled Again.

Pink Floyd
The main event as far as I was concerned. There was no announcement, just the heartbeat sound from Dark Side, and a green pulse on the big screens and the band launched into Breathe. They were almost back to a four-piece, after many years of having additional drums, keyboards, guitars and backing singers. This time there was just an extra guitarist, a singer and Dick Parry playing sax on Money, but still an amazing full sound. Roger seemed to be enjoying himself, and the crowd (whose average age rose by about 10 years when half the Robbie fans departed) were swaying along to Wish You Were Here. It was all a bit clinical, note-perfect and detached, but then Pink Floyd always have been.

Paul McCartney
It sounded like a good set, but I heard it from outside the park, as we decided to get a head start on the crowds.