Ireland's electric picnic dishes up a feast for the eyes and ears

While the scores of national and international acts were a huge draw, it's safe to say that the old adage of Glastonbury, "it's not just about the music", also rings true for Electric Picnic. The lush fields of Stradbally Estate perfectly host a cornucopia of musical thrills.

On Friday night, some of Ireland's brightest new lights kicked off the festivities. Giveamanakick, Pinky and Jape provided three great reasons to be cheerful about the future of Irish music. Richie Egan's Jape brought the Crawdaddy tent down with his slick electro-pop. He even dropped a snippet of 'Put 'Em Under Pressure'.

Kila, The Stunning and The Mighty Stef also kept the homefires burning while opening night headliners Sigur Ros played a gorgeously-choreographed and slickly-produced show that climaxed with a sense-shuddering blast of white noise.

That Petrol Emotion tore out of the blocks on Saturday, and the Derry/Seattle outfit, last seen in public in the mid-nineties, didn't disappoint with their blistering guitar anthems 'Sensitize' and 'Last of the True Believers'.

However, Franz Ferdinand most certainly did. The new material from their forthcoming third album was good, but the bulk of their set plodded rather than sparkled.

Saturday's best show by a few country miles was the one-man electro freak show that is Dan Deacon. Baltimore's finest created the wildest euphoric atmosphere of the weekend.

And on a rare sunny Sunday afternoon, there can be nothing on earth better than some sun-kissed Jamaican reggae to banish the memory of another horrid summer and the legendary Congos delivered a short but extremely sweet set of sublime reggae-roots tunes.

But Sunday really belonged to two of the most intriguing enigmas in modern music, Nick Cave and Kevin Shields.

Organisers made a concerted effort to encourage recycling this year and to avoid the mountains of rubbish which are a feature of so many music festivals.

Recycling bins were located in every campsite and in the main arena while fans were given bags for their rubbish as they arrived.

Some of the 32,500 revellers got stuck in the mud in their cars as they tried to leave Stradbally. Heavy rain on Sunday night left the fields soggy and partly flooded yesterday morning, following the wettest August in over 170 years.