Under grey skies and with plenty of mud under foot after all the rain of the week building up to the event, the traditional heavy rock day featured a headline performance from Metallica, but there was so much more on offer to suit just about every taste in music.

Most impressive, perhaps, were the Last Shadow Puppets - the more than just a side project of Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner.

Complete with full orchestra and with a lush colourful backdrop, the band were note perfect as they ran through the highlights of their Age Of Understatement album.

Turner, in full suit, was notably sober and relaxed and must have been delighted with how the show went in the band's first serioud gig together.

The Last Shadow Puppets were part of an impressive NME/ Radio 1 Stage line-up which also saw performances from trendy band of the moment Pendulum - who attracted the biggest crowd of the day at this arena - local heroes Hadouken and a headlining set from Wakefield band The Cribs who stormed their way through a set that included all their best songs until the plug was pulled on them when they ran slighly over the 11pm curfew.

And reminding everybody of how brilliant they can be were The Music, the Leeds band who have been off the scene for a while, but are back with a real bang.

Over on the Festival Republic Stage, Glasvegas were all dark and moody and provided one of the day's big highlights with their new single Daddy's Gone which prompted a mass singalong which took the band by surprise.

In contrast, Cage The Elephant were more showy and with their singer already in the crowd during the third song it indicated that this was going to be a real adrenalin rush of a show.

Over on the main stage, the biggest crowd of the day assembled for the unpredictable Tenacious D set and Hollywood superstar Jack Black did not disappoint with his mix of metal and mayhem.

Feeder were as impressive as ever - rock with real tunes - while the Dropkick Murphys overcame a few sound problems to deliver a powerful set and the tunedful Plain White T's warmed up the crowd nicely in their early slot.

The first bonus was the non appearance of the scheduled Slipknot due to an injury to their drummer. A few kids in masks were obviously disappointed, but this awful band were not missed on what turned out to be one of the best opening days of the Leeds Festival in recent years.

Festival pictures by Ian Harber

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