If you wander the highways and byways of Glastonbury long enough, you’ll always hear some seasoned festivalgoer mourning the passing of a golden age. Their presumption is that this was in the Sixties — with Marc Bolan on the Pyramid Stage, and festivalgoers given free milk.

But an altogether different — and, in a way, much more exciting — golden age was invoked by the two bands who stole the honours at Glastonbury 2009. And — as a matter of some national pride — they were two of our most British groups — Madness and then Blur. As the bittersweet Bash Street pop of Madness’s Baggy Trousers began on Sunday afternoon, upwards of 80,000 people reflexively raised their shoulders, lowered their heads and broke out into a joyous Two-Tone shuffle of near-biblical proportions. Those who looked up a couple of minutes later will have seen the saxophonist Lee Thompson taking off into the air, revolving as he relived his part in the song’s video.

Moments later, Mike Barson commenced the unmistakable opening piano phrase of It Must Be Love, and set off a mass-singalong — verses and all — by which Suggs was all too happy to be drowned out.

As for Blur, a simple “Wow!” from Damon Albarn hinted at the scale of their reception. The love their music continues to inspire was measurable in countless moments: the sight of four fans who had gone to the trouble of dressing up as the sad-faced milk cartons in the video of 1999’s Coffee and TV; the spontaneous communal “Yesss!” that greeted Girls and Boys; the way almost everyone present continued to sing the “Oh my baby” refrain of Tender — even after a hair-raisingly beautiful seven-minute performance of the song — so that Blur eventually had to start Country House over it.

If there was one thing that the group’s warm-up gigs of the previous weeks had lacked, it was a fitting arena for Britain to show how much it had missed them.

Not here though. Not a chance. A guesting Phil Daniels came on for Parklife and 100,000 people absolutely bellowed the chorus into the night sky. It was perhaps at this point that our memory of how good they were intersected most dramatically with their readiness to confirm it. Had we just witnessed the greatest headlining set in the festival’s history? The eno-o-ormous sense of wellbeing that swept through Worthy Farm suggested we most definitely had.

But an open-mindedness that transcends genre boundaries and tribal loyalties is the trademark of Glastonbury, and had certainly informed all the bands over the preceding three days. Certainly, those who knew how to entertain were greeted with open arms. Tom Jones rolled out hit after hit, with a voice that often sounded like a squadron of Harrier jump jets crash-landing near the lavatories.

Much of the huge crowd at the Other Stage for Lady GaGa on Friday had gathered there out of curiosity. What they got was GaGa embodying that spirit of dirty disco fun at which Madonna once excelled: backing dancers in bondage gear, see-through pianos, a heartfelt, bluesy version of Poker Face, and, at the end, a bra that shot fireworks out of the nipples. GaGa turned a sunny field in Somerset into a New York nightclub at 4am, albeit one that smelt of hog-roast.

Before a vast Saturday afternoon crowd, Dizzee Rascal was no less revelatory, turning in a consummately charming display of showmanship. Rascal freestyled at a breakneck pace over a sample of M.I.A.’s instantly recognisable Paper Planes before enlisting everyone watching to help out with the police noises on his own Sirens. He also played a quick-fire sequence of his own hits including recent chart-toppers Dance Wiv Me and Bonkers – but before he did so, Rascal was the first Pyramid Stage artist to pay a significant tribute to Michael Jackson.

Forsaking mawkish testimony for something altogether more celebratory, he merely said, “We lost a legend this week,” before singing blithely along – much as one might do alone in their car – as DJ Semtex unleashed the intros of several of Jackson’s best-known songs.

An hour later, at the Jazz World stage, it was the turn of Jamie Cullum to pay tribute, with a sizzlingly loose reconfiguration of Thriller.

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