LOVEBOX | livemusic.fm

In the seven years since Groove Armada founded Lovebox as a one-day event to promote their album of the same name, it has become a serious player on the UK festival circuit. This year it added a third day, with 50,000 people enjoying the eclectic lineup all the more for not having had to wake up in a tent.

Friday started slowly, with Ellie Goulding resembling a poppier, less soulful version of Duffy. The Noisettes' Shingai Shoniwa cut a striking figure, performing headstands in a diaphanous cape, but gymnastics and costumes couldn't cover up a lack of memorable songs. Chase and Status made the leap from studio-bound dubstep producers to a genuine live draw by recruiting charismatic front man MC Rage and unleashing ground-shaking junglist beats. They were the perfect warm-up for local hero Dizzee Rascal, who must now be the consummate festival headliner, with a peerless set-closing sequence of Dance Wiv Me, Holiday and Bonkers.

Saturday saw Mark Ronson unveil his new band the Business International, and he proved he can be just as tedious noodling with synthesisers as with brass. A guest appearance by Duran Duran gave his flaccid set a welcome boost, but while Ronson may be a studio guru, facilitator and socialite, he is decidedly no pop star.

This is not an accusation to level at Bryan Ferry, even as he stands on the verge of pensionable status. Perennially suave, he threw a succession of stylish shapes as Roxy Music ranged through their back catalogue, from the surrealist art-rock of Re-Make/Re-Model and Ladytron, to the sophisto-pop of Love Is the Drug and More Than This. Ferry's revisit of John Lennon's Jealous Guy was immaculate – yet it was poignant to see a band who once appeared to have been beamed down from the future transformed into a nostalgia trip.

Sunday had an out-and-proud gay theme, and a raucous crowd lapped up Hercules & Love Affair's glam disco and the potty-mouthed shock-electro of Peaches, who had a leg in plaster and was pushed around the stage in a wheelchair by a naked transsexual. Hot Chip's lop-sided club rhythms also hit the spot, but the star turn was undoubtedly Grace Jones.

At 61, she remains a miracle of cheekbones and musculature, and her amalgam of sleek reggae, funk and soul is as compelling as ever. But Jones's music has always served as her catwalk, and she obliged with a range of fantastical costumes suggesting, variously, a Viking witch-doctor, a tinsel Cleopatra and Batman in a burka. For the encore, she nonchalantly hula-hooped in high heels through the whole of the magisterial Slave to the Rhythm: a spectacular end to a hugely enjoyable Lovebox. Ian Gittins

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jul/19/lovebox-review