T in the Park 2012: Sunday

With the odds stacked against him – crack of noon start, wet and weary final day – Beerjacket plays valiantly on the T Break stage, offering up soothing guitar medley balm for the crusty, squinting, hungover early risers. Both Peter Kelly and his listeners seem very pleased to be there, and he strums passionately through a refreshingly genuine, candid, and raw performance. Soulful acoustic stuff. [GS]

Teeside band Weird Shapes at various times sound like Radiohead, Wild Beasts and, thanks mainly to the singer’s accent, The Futureheads which, for the uninitiated, is very much a compliment. Their songs are sonically quite dense and you get the sensation of being submerged thanks to the looping arpeggiated synth riffs and ringing guitar notes, leaving the typical verse/chorus/verse notebook in shreds. As Dan Spooner’s voice leaps from scattered syllables to falsettos, he and the rest of the band seem delighted to be given this chance to play a big festival, although they're probably as much a band to be enjoyed on record as the scramble for some free CDs at the end confirms. [NM]

Laki Mera aren't so much a band playing tunes as an audio sci-fi experience. One of the most stunning acts of the weekend, bassist and frontman Andrea begins by seemingly constructing an awe-inspiring spacecraft through pulsating, sweeping, synthesised soundscapes, piloting his gear like a mad astral commander. Laura’s Cardigans-esque vocals drift with an ethereal elegance across the celestial armada at play, and with the help of Tim Harbinson’s hearbeat drumming, the whole Introducing tent is soon hooked in. [GS]

Amid inflated condoms and a rare spate of dry warmth, Bombay Bicycle Club race through their mid-afternoon set on the main stage. Subdued onlookers only really get moving by closing track What If, but on the whole Jack Steadman’s buttery smooth voice and the band’s indie-folk backing ensure a sturdy performance, spiced up a little by the addition of Aberdonian singer Amber Wilson. [GS]

A typically reserved chap, Miaoux Miaoux doesn't seem terribly comfortable at the BBC Introducing Stage, but, backed by some hefty drums and guitar, his urban poptune synth flexes and grows, deftly hopping between vaporous eerie electronica and guttural techno. Distracted by the tight rhythms, though, we notice Dananananaykroyd’s Paul Carlin thumping tubs for the man; long may that action continue. [GS]

Of the T Break debutants, Capitals possess one of the more neatly defined and well honed styles on show. The Edinburgh band’s driven, electronic guitar music has disco and house influences at its core and within that basic outline they deliver a very tight set of songs, the highlight being new single All These Years, which features all their best elements with its restless melodic synth patterns, pulsating bass lines, chiming guitars riffs and a brilliant chorus. The only foot wrong is their final acoustic song which flags slightly, particularly given the otherwise relentless pace of the set. [NM]

London quintet Dry The River might look an awful lot like Biffy Clyro, but they certainly don’t play like them. Their chilled stage presence and comfortable banter belie a catalogue of triumphant torrents of sound, evocative of vast prairie vistas. It’s rare that a band so new can convey such scale, but the upfront sincerity of their unstoppable, uncompromising anthems leave the flagging T Break denizens in awe, and competes well with the intrusive bass of neighbouring act Chase and Status. [GS] 

“Thanks for not going to see Elbow,” opens The Birthday Suit frontman Rod Jones, and from the looks of things outside, the sparse assembly at the T Break attendees are the few who didn’t. With a twang evoking the lower vocal range of his old Idlewild bandmate, the set list consists of mainly danceable rock numbers. The scattered crowd thins as time goes on, leaving a few die-hard fans and one stumbling loony covered head to toe in mud. Not sure he knows where he is, to be honest. [GS]

Taking half the set to simply say the band’s name, homespun Dundee gang Anderson McGinty Webster Ward and Fisher put on one hell of a show. Less a set and more a lively extravaganza of poly-instrumentalism (we’re talking trumpets, accordions, waistcoats and tweed here), the busy T Break stage is treated to a keg-full of bluesy bucolic country, with helpings of wacky cabaret swing and poignant Dylanesque crooning. Striking a canny balance between lighthearted and emotive, this bunch of characters know how to please a crowd. [GS] 

We're not sure whether it's an issue with levels, or simply the acoustics of the Transmission Stage, but a lot of The Horrors’ characteristic sawtooth rock with a synthy flavour is lost entirely to a mush of inaudible mumbling and indistinct guitar. It's a damn shame for a closing headliner, and as much as the crowd are dancing their tits off to the fruits of last year's Skying, the quality of the sound alone seems to drive some fans away. Every now and then there's a hint of their newfound melody, but it's frustratingly defeated by the noise. [GS] 

Battling against Kasabian, Skrillex and Swedish House Mafia, it’s impressive enough that Teklo draws any sort of crowd at all tonight; but from the moment he throws down his first burst of hi-octane, bass heavy beats, a steady flow of stragglers soon make their way to T Break. It’s not hard to see why either, as guest rappers hop onstage to deliver rhymes over a neat line in screaming synths. Even as the maestro and his cohorts overrun their slot, they retain a sizeable crowd (some of whom, by now, have missed Orbital's set entirely). As we retreat to our mud-caked tent one last time, we're left in no doubt as to why these guys were headliners. [NM]