It's time to get V-excited

V Festival

It's that time of year again... the biggest names in music are in Staffordshire this weekend for V Festival 2008. Tamzin Hindmarch takes a look at the line-up, and Richard Jones tells her why The Feeling's little world filled up there two years ago...

AS STAR-STUDDED line-ups from the world of music go, they don't get much more star-studded than V 2008.

Starting with the Sessions Stage, Sons Of Albion are sure to draw attention to themselves, not least because lead singer Logan is the son of Led Zepplin's legendary Robert Plant.

Iglu & Hartly and Sparkadia will be among the others putting in appearances there over the next two days.

And weaving their way around the usual array of noodle bars, burger vans, clothes stalls, fairground rides and – oh joy! – the loo queues, festival-goers are also likely to stumble across the Virgin Mobile Union tent, which makes a return this year.

Inside, they can expect to see, among others, Richard Hawley, The Dykeenies, Guillemots, Young Knives, Little Man Tate, and Noah And The Whales, as well as old-timers Siouxsie and Echo And The Bunnymen.

In the JJB Arena, for those in search of more nostalgia, Ian Brown returns to V, and The Pogues and The Charlatans will also be putting in appearances.

Among a host of mainstream pop acts providing eye candy as well as catchy tunes will be the glamorous Sugababes and Estelle, while The Chemical Brothers will surely end any die-hard party animal's night on a high.

The second 4Music stage again doesn't disappoint this year, with Kaiser Chiefs, The Zutons, The View, Reverend And The Makers, Scouting For Girls and The Rifles among Saturday's guests. The Prodigy, The Pigeon Detectives, The Hoosiers, Duffy, Amy Macdonald and Air Traffic are among Sunday's contenders.

Heading up the main stage will be modern-day rock gods Muse, with Stereophonics on before them in the build-up to the Sunday night finale, and The Kooks, Alanis Morissette, The Futureheads and Maximo Park among the earlier acts on the day.

Also on the V main stage – sandwiched somewhere in the line-up along with Saturday headliners The Verve, Kings Of Leon, Amy Winehouse and Girls Aloud – will be The Feeling.

Last time the band's Richard Jones – husband of Sophie Ellis Bextor – spoke to gO, it was May 2007 on the eve of decamping to the Duke Of Somerset's plush country pile to begin recording tracks for the present album.

He had no idea that what he, Dan Gillespie-Sells, Kevin and Ciaran Jerimiah, and Paul Stewart were about to create in rural Wiltshire was the album Join With Us, which would be a new entry number one in the UK charts in February.

It was the perfect follow-up to the 2006 album Twelve Stops And Home, their debut which had peaked at number two.

A tour is planned for later on this year, stopping off in Wolverhampton and Manchester in November. Before that, at Weston Park tomorrow, Richard says fans can expect to hear tracks from both albums.

"When I think of V, I always think back to when we were at V 2006. We had come from nothing and in the course of six months we had built up to the release our first single, Sewn," he says.

"What's good about V is that you can have Kings Of Leon and all these indie bands in the line-up" adds Richard, "but at the same time you'll have bands like Muse playing pure rock and then acts like Girls Aloud too."