As renowned for the impossibility of ever getting into the tents as for the discerning lineups that lie inside them, East London's oversold Field Day has always proved somewhat of a double-edged sword. Perhaps in an effort to remedy this, the festival has expanded to cover two days for the first time this year. And if there are still acts that wind up borderline impossible to see (the decision to put Future Islands on at a time when not one other band is playing across the entire site seems an almost wilfully ridiculous one), then the split at least ensures that Field Day's lineup is the most cohesive of the festival calendar.

Saturday aligns more with the electronic and left-field pop end of the spectrum, boasting fast-emerging national treasures Metronomy at the top of the bill and a Pitchfork-friendly selection of credible fun beneath. Emerging after the deluge of an earlier storm into blazing sun, Sky Ferreira's duffle coat attire is an admirably resolute and probably pretty sweaty reminder of the amusing trials of being a fashion icon, but a set of sparkling yet embittered pop is enough to quash any style over substance claims, while later her 'Everything Is Embarrassing' writer Dev Hynes - aka Blood Orange - is the master of perfectly sultry, low-slung grooves.


With girlfriend and ex-Friends singer Samantha Urbani on co-vocals, the subtly seductive likes of 'It Is What It Is' in his arsenal and a full band and backing vocalists behind him (including a very visible Florence Welch dancing in the wings), it's like watching all the beautiful people throw an effortlessly sexy party that you're vaguely, voyeuristically allowed to stand on the peripheries of.

Poetic Mancunian oddballs MONEY reign in their usual soliloquising and nakedness into a basically normal show: the spine-tingling strength of 'Cold Water' and 'So Long (God Is Dead)' is still clear, but it seems a shame to curb the theatrics when they do it so well.

So it's left to Metronomy to conclude the evening. Backed by slightly budget-looking, cut-out pink clouds, decked out in matching white and with a quintessentially English brand of onstage wit, the entire Metronomy package aligns perfectly with the Casio plonk of 'Radio Ladio' or the more personal offerings from this year's Love Letters. Four albums in and Joe Mount and co have gone on an audible journey; it seems a sentimentally fitting finale that they finish their first ever festival headline with one of their earliest tracks, 'You Could Easily Have Me', and the whole field erupts.


Sunday may play host to a smaller selection of bands, but it's a selection where quality over quantity has never seemed more true.

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Australian nutcases Pond provide one of the sets of the weekend, segueing between the ballsy, '70s rock stomp of 'Xanman' to a host of new tracks via a brief cover of Michael Jackson's God complex hit 'Earth Song'. Covered in silver face paint, apologising for being ridiculous because they've been "watching Spinal Tap solidly for 30 hours" and calling a recently-penned offering 'Heroic Shart' ("Like s**t fart?" singer Nick Allbrook suggests), it's a compendium of wonderful weirdness.

London newcomers Telegram are another easy favourite on the Shacklewell Arms stage. Outing a double header of newer tracks - 'Godiva's Here' and 'Inside Outside' - their careering brand of frenetic glam rock is becoming noticeably fine-tuned into something that's as memorable for its melodic clout as its relentless energy.


Over on the main stage, Temples' melodic prowess is already proven, but under the kind of scorching heat that could floor even the most hardened sun-worshipper, the crowd are finding it hard to acknowledge it. Drenched in spiritual references and taken from a record that's even bloody called Sun Structures, the likes of 'Move with the Season' and 'Colours to Life' are gorgeously blissful bedfellows for the weather, but today just doesn't seem to be the Kettering quartet's day.

The Horrors fare little better. Focusing on recent album Luminous, their swathes of noise are built for cavernous rooms of devotees, rather than temperate fields of people waiting for another band. Though The Horrors' canon has evolved into something dense and unique, it's a sign that maybe they could do with one or two more tracks that prick through the fog to give a little more variety.


And so it falls to the Pixies to show how it's done. They say nothing throughout; there are no theatrics, no whistles and bangs or elaborate set pieces. They are simply the Pixies playing one of the most seminal back catalogues in rock music. And from the feral barks of 'Crackity Jones' to the enveloping crashes of 'Velouria' to even the newer cuts from Indie Cindy ('Bagboy'; 'Greens and Blues') which are slowly sounding more and more of a snug fit, they play them like masters.

Double the days, double the fun - Field Day in its expanded form bowls a near-on strike that suggests it's unlikely to return to a single day any year soon.

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