Thursday 25/08/05 Robert Plant, Foo Fighters, Babyshambles, The Departure, Goldfrapp @ Rock en Seine, Paris

From here on in things go from bad to worse. Owing to a customary ****-up on Pete Doherty’s part, Babyshambles are delayed and relegated to the third stage, with indie rocker wannabes The Departure being hauled up to take their place on the second stage. It’s like swapping one bad hand for another, as it soon becomes apparent that singer/front man David Jones can neither front a band nor sing. His awful droning succeeds in killing just about every tune the band have to offer, which is unfortunate for the Departure, because most of their songs clearly weren’t that good in the first place. Even the likes of Ian Brown would have struggled to make this stodgy affair come to life, as the boys from Northampton trundle through one half-baked baggy Mancunian-style pastiche to the next. At last, the band mercifully live up to their name and leave us to nurse our incensed rock sensibilities.

Over on the nearby third stage, Babyshambles are busy getting ready to rub salt in our wounds. Two points: one, the sound quality here is shocking, worse even than on the main stage yesterday and two, it really doesn’t matter, because Babyshambles are without a doubt one of the worst ideas in contemporary rock ‘n’ roll. The only thing Pete Doherty does well is front, but even here his zonked onstage ramblings and microphone-swinging antics just make him look like a Jaggeresque parody. As for the band, they are about as loose as a wizard’s sleeve and have absolutely no hooks whatsoever, and when will the rock world finally wake up and realise that Doherty cannot, under any circumstances, sing? It’s definitively clear that whatever songwriting talent he ever possessed has long since evaporated, and it’s stuff like this that almost makes you want to think about taking up classical music, so dire is this ‘set’ in terms of craft, delivery and presence. Somebody shoot this band, please?

And so it’s off to the main stage, where we hope to be cured by the healing power of Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters. The set-up bodes well: we lose count of how many speakers are stacked up at the back of the stage, and whatever problems plagued this stage yesterday have thankfully been cleared up. The crowd is packed end to end of the park, as folks of all ages murmur expectantly. Then a great cheer goes up as a grinning Grohl walks onto the stage with his band, strumming the opening riff to ‘In Your Honor’. Leaning forwards with an almost menacing glint in his eyes, he screams “Are you ready for this?” before driving headlong into the chorus, and suddenly we’re plunged headlong into a waterfall of cascading sound. The adrenaline rush is indescribable, as the Foos drive on like men possessed through meltdown versions of ‘All My Life’, ‘Times Like These’ and ‘The Best’. Then, while were are still reeling, they take it right down, jamming loosely into 'Up In arms’, giving Dave the chance to take some time out and say hello and introduce the band. Then it’s straight back to the action: “We only got an hour, so we wanna play as many tunes as we can!” he yells, to predictably rapturous applause. The Foos perfectly crafted set is the ultimate vehicle for delivering the best of an awesome back catalogue, and certainly the best act of the festival. ‘Friend of a Friend’ (a mournful dirge with unmistakable echoes of Kurt Cobain’s ‘Something in the Way’), is a poignant song that makes you want to shed tears for whoever it was written about. It’s classic rock ballad writing at its best. Crystalline renditions of ‘End Over End’, ‘The Last Song’ and ‘My Hero’ take us through to the end, and the band close out the set with a frenzied version of ‘Monkey Wrench’ as the crowds hurl themselves about the place with a wild abandon. And then, as quick as they came, they’re gone, vanished from the sight of the roaring crowd. Baby-who?