Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Somerset

This year's Glastonbury has one of the most diverse line-ups ever seen at the world famous festival. But last night, the line-up more closely resembled the traditional set of bands than the rest of the weekend, with Kings of Leon headlining the main stage, and to round up the trio of headliners, the anthemic radio-friendly indie rock bands, Editors and The Fratellis.

The Scottish band The Fratellis, whose hits include "Flatheads", "Chelsea Dagger" and "Whistle For The Choir", are repeating the success of their performance last year on the same stage.

In the first of several mainstream successful acts, Kate Nash, dressed in a gypsy skirt, took the prestigious slot to open the day with her song "Pumpkin Soup". It may have been at the very early hour of before 11am, but this made no impact on the enthusiasm of the crowd that came to watch and sing along with the Brit-winning star as she played all her hits from her number one debut album, Foundations.

Luckily for her she had what was likely to be the one rain-free set of the day. Commanding the several-thousand capacity Pyramid Stage she's come a long way since her modest show at last year's Glastonbury when she played a set at the Park Stage.

Following her on to the stage were The Subways, whose performance will be remembered not for the amp clambering of their bravely bare-chested frontman, Billy Lunn, but for the malfunction of the smoke machine that rendered some of their show basically unviewable.

Next in her typically gentle off-kilter style, the Scottish singer songwriter K T Tunstall peppered banter between hits from her debut album and her more recent Drastic Fantastic with witty random facts such as: "Ginger people need 20 per cent more anaesthetic."

In his well-received set, Sam Duckworth and his band, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, joined the beatboxer Shlomo on stage for his song "Oak Tree". It impressed the crowd and displayed his devotion to merging underground musical genre with the comfort of melodic folk-tinged songs, as he had already shown through his collaboration with Nitin Sawhney on his second album Searching for the Hows and Whys.

The early hours of the festival were also about the rising stars. The much-feted Brooklyn band Vampire Weekend cemented their reputation as one of the year's most exciting acts with a storming set before a huge crowd at the Other Stage, playing their cool blend of Afro-beat and Indie in "Mansard Roof", "A Punk" and "Oxford".

Over on the stage named after the late, lamented DJ John Peel, Glasvegas, the Glaswegian band who made the front page of the NME this month under the statement "The best new band in Britain", played their winning mix of macho, leather jacket-wearing indie-rock with a melancholy sensibility in their songs, including "Daddy's Gone", the new single which looks set to land in the top 20 chart this week. Another of the rising stars, Santogold, impressed fans new to her music with her powerful voice while teasing the people who stayed at home and did not brave the weather.

The Gossip's Beth Ditto cranked out songs, even dipping into the Nirvana album, In Utero. Rousing the crowd she had them singing along with her mantra "Ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop". Throughout their punky dance rock songs the Arkansas star showed off her powerful vocals in "Standing of the way of Control" but she saved the last, which could be heard at a huge distance from the stage, as could the screams of appreciation that followed.

With a big concern that Pete Doherty would definitely be headlining the Park Stage this opening night, and with a surprise additional short set from Franz Ferdinand to look forward to, the party looks likely to live up to all the promises of previous years.