T in the Park came to a roundly successful conclusion last night with the Manic Street Preachers lording it over a huge Main Stage audience, as No Entry signs were placed over the doors to the Slam Tent and Stage Two where Fat Boy Slim and Happy Mondays respectively were headlining.

While the Mondays and Bjorn Again fulfilled the audience's nostalgia requirement and the Manics gave the mass appeal draw, it was Massive Attack's intense but stunning set and Mercury Rev's panoramic New York vignettes that provided the musical highlights for the climax of the event.

Through the day, high temperatures made yesterday perhaps the most claustrophobic day at T in the Park since the festival's inception, the main arena packed with a solid mass of people divided between those soaking up the sun rays and the music.

To the relief of many, the myriad tents provided cooler temperatures and bands than one of the less engaging main stage line-ups in the event's six years.

Bizarrely considering the weather, the biggest queue was outside the Aussie steak sandwich bar.

Then again, much of the line-up was also of a meat and two veg variety - solid rather than inspiring.

On the main stage, the Bare Naked Ladies offered up a pub rock skiffle version of the Beautiful South.

Reef, for their part, took us to the day's lowest point with some cliche-ridden rock.

When Gary Stringer starts a song with the line ''I've got something to say'', it serves only to highlight their sheer emptiness.

Sandwiched between them and the proficiently crowd-pleasing James, Placebo's Brian Molko does for once appear the visionary artist he clearly thinks himself to be.

Indeed, Nancy Boy is probably the lasting main stage memory of the day.

With so many British bands on display, it is telling that the highlights are often in the shape of the foreigners: Cassius (France), and the summary, jazzy doodlings of The Roots (USA) ignited the Dance Tent, and Deus's (Belgium) originality set them apart from some of their evening session stage contemporaries. Dark Star's sheer pomposity, not to mention songs, probably warrant them a better slot next year.

On the ''local lads and lassies done well'' front, certificates of merit must go to The Delgados and Dot Allison - the latter's spacy, John Barry-influenced pop was just about the perfect soundtrack for the day as a whole.

As is always the case at T in the Park, there is way too much to take in over so large a site, that the initial feeling is inevitably of disappointment at missed bands and opportunities: a testimony to the festival's continuing expansion and success.