Thanks to a delayed set by Jane’s Addiction I only wander onto The Killers as they joylessly parp out The World That We Live In, the band a previously seeming a solid lynchpin for a headline Saturday set.
However, though they were likely to later wheel out all the hits there was something unmistakably lacklustre about the American camp indie kings as they started out on the Main Stage.
Perhaps if third and most recent studio album Day & Age hadn’t been by and large unadulterated MOR hogwash they might have fared better. Oh well, next time chaps? Hmm, let's hope...
Instead the highlight of the Saturday night headliners was Nine Inch Nails, who found themselves unveiled through some atmospheric billowing dry ice on the NME Stage, half an hour late thanks to Perry Farrell and co.
It’s Trent Reznor and co’s reported swansong – well, until they probably then reform a few years later for megabucks and some well deserved headlining slots – and the buffed-up frontman seemed in intimidatingly intense mood, throwing his guitar to the crowd furiously during synth-dominated sing-a-long Terrible Lie.
Steam visibly emanating from his body - now that's what I call putting effort into a show! - the vapour at times just seemed part of NIN's superb light show as the industrial-rockers revved through a classics-strewn set, one which at 50 minutes long was far too short to encompass a superlative 21-year career.
Still, even if there was no Closer, they made the most of it with the likes of Survivalism, The Hand That Feeds, and Head Like a Hole, finishing off with a spine-tingling encore of Hurt, the ballad recently and memorably covered by an ailing Johnny Cash. It’ll be a great shame if this is the last we see of Nine Inch Nails, but if all the rumours that this is their swansong are true at least they signed off in style.
