It's tough getting through the throng of women. It's Friday night and Sam Gray's set has just ended. Sweat is pearling on his brow. He bows and steps from the stage. The four other band members lay down their instruments and grin at each other.

Music festivals are everywhere these days - it feels like there's one everywhere you turn. This fact now seems to extend even to the pages of the Observer on a Sunday morning.

It's about this time of year that I start to get excited about the upcoming festival season; finding out who's playing where and which ones we might go to, assessing the all-important festival wardrobe and pondering whether we'll take the plunge this year and go to a festival with the kids.

Over the past few years, music fans of a nostalgic disposition have been treated to a series of glorious, tear-inducing comebacks by bands who stole a piece of our hearts and soundtracked a period of our lives.

US singer Beyonce made her debut at Glastonbury, bringing the three-day festival to a close. She headlined the main Pyramid Stage, making her one o...