Picnic highs: Beck – every note feels fresh-minted

All right, Electric Picnic, we'll admit it: everything was better in the 1990s. Happy now? The rise of the sampler had settled the genre wars, postmodernism wasn't quite so annoying, consumption wasn't all that conspicuous, and an artist as unpredictable as Beck could be legitimately considered a pop star. He's not as big a draw as he once was, but watching his electrifying set on the main stage is no nostalgia trip. Every song, every note feels fresh-minted and despite having one of the best regarded albums of 2014, he knows what a festival requires: the hits come pristine and fast: Devil's Haircut, Novacaine, Loser, Summer Girl, E-Pro . . . It's enough to set up the blue note of Morning Phase, with Morning so majestically forlorn it catches in your throat. But Beck is ultimately here to party. Even his band introductions, flitting energetically through musical quotation, hold a giddy pleasure. Sincere in his flippancy, easy in his depth, Beck is hands down the finest showman to grace this stage.

In Three Words: Where it's at.