Having just returned from the excellent, if windswept, Hop Farm festival I wanted to ask some opinions on the modern big-gig experience - particularly the paraphernalia that accompanies the one-dayer event. I know this has been covered before and at greater length, but I think there's more mileage to be had. Not as a moan-fest, but more as a way of understanding the modern gig and the modern gig-goer.

I must have counted a dozen tents pitched around the main arena of the Hop Farm: from small pup tents to full-size four season jobs, two gazebos, a thicket of collapsible camping chairs running from the burger stalls to the mixing desk (and closer). And that's before we get to the food coolers. M&S was the caterer of choice, and, during Primal Scream's set, a group of smart thirty-somethings were chowing down on hummus and olives and sparkling wine. Gathered around a small camping table with their backs to the main stage. The odd look thrown back to remind themselves they'd paid £50 each to see Supergrass and Neil Young performing exclusively for them.

At what point is that vital connection between audience and performer cut? When you get out beyond the mosh pit? When the area around the mixing desk has been subsumed into the orbit of burger vans and stalls selling herbal highs and rubbish woolen ‘ethical’ hats?

The blurb for the Hop Farm was all about taking the gig experience back to its ‘roots’. Laudable yes, but impossible in 2008 with our various gig-going habits firmly entrenched? Maybe someone could've explained this philosophy in the glossy programme: 'An open letter to the geezer with the ten man gazebo and wall of windbreakers, who suddenly realized that the band with the silly name were ruining the conversation at his summer bbq.'

I'm not wearing the hair shirt here, just asking if things have moved on so far that festivals (more than ever this year) have become somehow pointless?