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."