HIGH-ENERGY is what festival performances should be about.

Maximo Park’s frontman Paul Smith and Lostprophet’s lead singer Ian Watkins have it in abundance.

The pair’s styles make for interesting contrasting though.

Watkins’ was up first on the V Stage and demanded audience participation from the start.

Early afternoon when festival goers are happy to sit back and be entertained isn’t the best time for this tact.

But the Welshman got the crowd going with classics like Rooftops and Last Train Home.

So much so in fact that by the end of the set he was full of praise for the crowd he described as “lacklustre” after his first exchange.

Maximo Park’s Smith is admitted crowd participation is not his thing – and the audience didn’t mind.

The Geordie rocker, wearing his trademark bowler hat, made an understated start with Girls Who Love Guitars but got the fans going with Our Velocity and Apply Some Pressure.

He even threw in a new track, The Kids are Sick Again.

Festival goers were standing as far as the eye could see and loved every minute of Maximo Park.