Arcade Fire Live @ Hyde Park, 30th June 2011

Arcade Fire’s meteoric rise from quaint indie rock band to full-blown superstars always had an air of inevitability about it. Their debut album, Funeral, was mind-blowingly good. The Canadian band then released their follow up album, Neon Bible, and once again created a phenomenal album, full of truly epic rock anthems.

Yet whilst Arcade Fire swiftly built a strong cult following and critics poured praise all over their first two albums, they still remained relatively unknown. Third album, The Suburbs - yet another world class album from Arcade Fire - won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards and two BRIT Awards, yet still had some people asking “Who Are Arcade Fire?”.

However, Arcade Fire’s Grammy win did bring them more attention and secured them a headline slot at Hyde Park, a gig that often provides a launch pad for bands to move from a big band to a massive one. Before the seven piece from Canada took to the stage there were stellar support slots from Arcade Fire contributor Owen Pallet, The Vaccines, Beirut and Mumford & Sons.

Review: Saturday @ Glastonbury

Day two of Glastonbury brought more great acts, including some of the brightest new bands around this year. Starting off with Stornoway - the indie folk band from Oxford who are viewed by many as the calmer, relaxed, love-child of Mumford & Sons - Saturday was another great day of music. After seeing Stornaway put on an accomplished performance in their debut at Glasto - on the Pyramid stage, no less - we headed to the John Peel tent to catch the London indie rock quartet, Yuck.

The four-piece released their impressive self-titled debut album earlier this year to widespread critical approval, and it was interesting to see them perform that material live for the first time. Whilst Yuck don’t have great stage presence - more like a “we’re know were good, so we’re going to do that cool rockstar ambivalence thing” attitude - their enthralling guitar driven songs proved a hit with the the packed-out tent.