His grey hair blows wildly in the breeze. His dishevelled clothing suggests an eccentric who’s been around a very long time. There’s a determined expression on his face which suggests he may be old, but he’s not going anywhere soon… But enough about the average Hop Farm punter – this, after all, is a day dominated by Neil Young. A new one day event, Hop Farm is geared towards the greyer pound, and is filled today with some quality traditional rock – there are fine sets from My Morning Jacket and Supergrass – but this is an event whose clientele have only one act in mind. Neil, here playing to those, so it seems from a brief straw poll, who were unable to make it to his recent UK shows, does not disappoint. Using a similar stage set to his indoor gigs – the massive klieg lights, a cigar store Indian, an enigmatic illuminated code of letters and numbers arrayed on the backdrop behind him – this is a show of very different character. Neil himself is wearing the now familiar paint-spattered Jackson Pollock suit, but the bemused eccentric tinkering with props that characterised those gigs is substituted for an unequivocal directness of approach. “Love And Only Love” opens a show which uses Neil’s heaviest guitar strafing to sandwich a set of softer, acoustic-based favourites. Early surprises include a terrific outing for first album classic “I’ve Been Waiting For You” (“I don’t play this very often. I…don’t know why…”), a comparatively terse “Spirit Road” (“A new song, but it sounds just like the last one”), and a fiery “Fuckin’Up”. Effectively, this clears the stage for the quieter section of the show. It’s here – with “Oh Lonesome Me”, a trip to the pipe organ for “Mother Earth”, then “Needle And The Damage Done”, “Heart Of Gold” and “Old Man”– that you’re reminded that alongside the occasionally Dylanesque performer who can throw bizarre setlist curveballs, there still exists the Neil Young who’s a master of judging the mood. This selection of evergreen (i)Harvest(i)-based material also showcases the schizophrenic nature of Young’s band. Twenty minutes later they will be embarking on more scarifying noise adventure; right now they are simply perfectly harmonious. If it’s a show that makes a huge success of this kind of juxtaposition, making it seem like the most natural thing in the world, the closing portion is interesting, if ever so slightly mystifying. After an epic voyage with “No Hidden Path”, a brief hiatus is followed by Neil’s take on The Beatles’ A Day In The Life. Undoubtedly, it’s a kind of headline-grabbing statement – apparently on occasion Neil would play the song through the PA before he came onstage in the USA in the 1970s – but to carp in a minor way, the turn-on-a-sixpence nature of the song seems ill-suited to Neil’s behemoth sound. Still, as a way of underlining a job well done, it’s about perfect. He’d love to turn you on. And, of course, he did. JOHN ROBINSON SETLIST Love And Only Love Hey Hey, My My Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere I've Been Waiting For You Spirit Road Fuckin' Up Oh, Lonesome Me Mother Earth The Needle And The Damage Done Unknown Legend Heart Of Gold Old Man Get Back To The Country Words No Hidden Path A Day In The Life

PAUL Simon and Crowded House were the billed main headliners but if the phalanx of photographers snaking its way across the field during The Bangles’ Saturday set is anything to go by, the biggest star at this, the fifth Cornbury Festival, is an inconspicuously turned out gent and a lady we take to be his wife who are making their way, as casually as possible, down into the throng around the stage. Blimey, it’s David Cameron. But hey, that’s the sort of festival Cornbury is. Last year Kate Moss was knocking around, the year before that Prince Harry, and only 10 minutes ago we were supping shoulder to shoulder with Jeremy Clarkson in the Pimms and Champers VIP bar. Billed - somewhat ironically as it turned out – as “The Complete Summer Weekend”, the Cornbury Festival takes place on the beautiful country estate of Lord and Lady Rotherwick near Charlbury in Oxfordshire; the sort of place where fallow deer graze peacefully under ancient giant oaks. Past line-ups have seen Amy Winnehouse, Blondie, David Gray, The Waterboys, Proclaimers and Joe Cocker perform and here’s how this year’s most family fun you can have in the Cotswolds shook down. BEST BITS: 1. Toots & The Maytals doing ‘Monkey Man’ as the sun did battle with the blackening sky and, sadly, lost. 2. The Bangles – that’s the Petersen sisters plus Susanna Hoffs – playing a perky ‘Going Down To Liverpool’ and ‘Eternal Flame’ – the latter a real lighters aloft moment. 3. Carbon/Silicon on the Second Stage, Mick Jones toothily grinning in the face of the driving rain as Tony James and co delivered a dapper ‘Why Do Men Fight’. 4. Paul Simon. Just Paul Simon. It was weird he was here, especially as Hugh Phillimore, the guys who runs the show, had originally tried to book ZZ Top! Anyway, the titchy half of the most successful duo of the 60s saw us all home in good humour on Saturday with a set smattered with solo hits like ‘Me & Julio’ and ‘Slip-Slidin’ Away’ plus S&G greats like ‘Mrs Robinson’. 5. 10cc. There’s only Graham Gouldman left from the original line-up but the set is still a jukebox of hits – ‘I’m Not In Love’, ‘Rubber Bullets’ and the exquisite ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’ – all immaculately played. 6. KT Tunstall – braved the elements which had, by Sunday evening, assumed the characteristics of Noah’s mythic flood, to put on a plucky and ecstatically received show. BUMMERS SO now we know where all the traditional Glastonbury weather went. STEVE SUTHERLAND

PAUL Simon and Crowded House were the billed main headliners but if the phalanx of photographers snaking its way across the field during The Bangles’ Saturday set is anything to go by, the biggest star at this, the fifth Cornbury Festival, is an inconspicuously turned out gent and a lady we take to be his wife who are making their way, as casually as possible, down into the throng around the stage. Blimey, it’s David Cameron. But hey, that’s the sort of festival Cornbury is. Last year Kate Moss was knocking around, the year before that Prince Harry, and only 10 minutes ago we were supping shoulder to shoulder with Jeremy Clarkson in the Pimms and Champers VIP bar. Billed - somewhat ironically as it turned out – as “The Complete Summer Weekend”, the Cornbury Festival takes place on the beautiful country estate of Lord and Lady Rotherwick near Charlbury in Oxfordshire; the sort of place where fallow deer graze peacefully under ancient giant oaks. Past line-ups have seen Amy Winnehouse, Blondie, David Gray, The Waterboys, Proclaimers and Joe Cocker perform and here’s how this year’s most family fun you can have in the Cotswolds shook down. BEST BITS: 1. Toots & The Maytals doing ‘Monkey Man’ as the sun did battle with the blackening sky and, sadly, lost. 2. The Bangles – that’s the Petersen sisters plus Susanna Hoffs – playing a perky ‘Going Down To Liverpool’ and ‘Eternal Flame’ – the latter a real lighters aloft moment. 3. Carbon/Silicon on the Second Stage, Mick Jones toothily grinning in the face of the driving rain as Tony James and co delivered a dapper ‘Why Do Men Fight’. 4. Paul Simon. Just Paul Simon. It was weird he was here, especially as Hugh Phillimore, the guys who runs the show, had originally tried to book ZZ Top! Anyway, the titchy half of the most successful duo of the 60s saw us all home in good humour on Saturday with a set smattered with solo hits like ‘Me & Julio’ and ‘Slip-Slidin’ Away’ plus S&G greats like ‘Mrs Robinson’. 5. 10cc. There’s only Graham Gouldman left from the original line-up but the set is still a jukebox of hits – ‘I’m Not In Love’, ‘Rubber Bullets’ and the exquisite ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’ – all immaculately played. 6. KT Tunstall – braved the elements which had, by Sunday evening, assumed the characteristics of Noah’s mythic flood, to put on a plucky and ecstatically received show. BUMMERS SO now we know where all the traditional Glastonbury weather went. STEVE SUTHERLAND