In this age of increasingly ambitious and imaginative festivals, V was a reminder of how safe and corporate these events can still be. With record weekend crowds of 170,000 at its two sites in Staffordshire and Essex, the festival was sunny and smoothly run, but somewhat soulless, with a menu firmly grounded in the Radio One and NME-approved indie-rock mainstream.

V began in 1996, where much of the weekend’s rather creaky line-up still seemed to be stranded: Oasis, Fatboy Slim, James, Ocean Colour Scene, the Lightning Seeds. It was also alarmingly overstocked with cardigan-wearing mummy’s boys. From the decaffeinated soul-pop crooners James Morrison and Paolo Nutini, to the soppy soft-rockers Athlete, Keane, Elbow and Snow Patrol, there was no escaping the creeping air of suffocating blandness.

Admittedly Elbow’s Guy Garvey won over the crowd with a typically warm, bear hug. But Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody struck a false note when he tried something similar. His fuzzy anthems of sub-Coldplay wonderment felt largely untouched by real emotion.

There were a few sparky performers at V, mostly female, including a surprise cameo by Amy Winehouse in Essex. Meanwhile in Staffordshire, Lady Gaga arrived late to a resounding chorus of boos, but soon had the crowd roaring along to her Pavlovian robo-pop hits. “I love England!” trilled the cut-price Madonna, “bloody, bloody England!”

New York’s neo-psychedelic hipsters MGMT also mustered some excitement, getting hundreds dancing to Time to Pretend. Dropping a handful of new songs into the set, their singer Andrew VanWyngarden thanked the crowd for sticking around to watch them instead of seeing Oasis on the main stage.

In fairness, there was no real contest. Never in the past 15 years have I witnessed the Gallaghers play such a perfunctory and plodding show. Noel and Liam are apparently not even on speaking terms and they communicated little to the Weston Park crowd either. Scowling and businesslike, they cranked out a sluggish, trudging parade of hits like some grim contractual obligation.

Creatively, Oasis gave up challenging themselves or their fans a decade ago. But at least they used to make being loudmouth rock stars look like rude, rowdy fun. At V they were merely joyless, witless and rudderless. Ending with a tambourine balanced on his head like a tiara, Liam told the crowd “you’ve been biblical” before administering a verbal kicking to I Am the Walrus. Last night Oasis pulled out of V in Essex, citing Liam’s laryngitis. He certainly bellowed himself hoarse, but like much of this festival he also sounded tired, bored and stuck in the past.

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