Some of you will have gone to V this year, or Reading. Or the Glastonbury one. A few of you might even have been to all of them. You probably had a great time. After all, what’s not to love?

You got those middle management guys staring into the middle distance nonchalantly twirling fire on a rope as if that suddenly makes them at one with the earth. You’ve got loud HR workers chewing their own mouths off in the dance tent. You might even have found yourself in the reggae area, desperately attempting to hold down a gush of puke having mixed a brewski with a marijuana joint. Festival season – it’s just brilliant.

But before you pull your dreads apart and return to civilisation with tales of how great Blur were, or how Dizzee Rascal is totally blowing your mind right now, take a deep breath and scroll through our top five list of the greatest live performers ever. Prepare to be amazed…1. Ian Brown

A humble northern gentleman, Ian Brown likes to let the music breathe. Hence, the intros to songs tend to swirl around teasingly for at least seven or eight minutes, as he strolls back and forth across the stage, counting the beats to check that he comes in at just the right moment. And when he does, the sweetness of his vocals – which sound almost exactly the same as getting told off by a tired bus driver – somehow drown out the rest of the music. It’s like being underwater, and hearing the sound of dolphins. Brain damaged, slow motion dolphins.

2. Amy Winehouse

These days, with all your Twitters and Face Face, it’s important that an artist interacts with his/her fans. They need to make these screaming maniacs feel that they’re part of the show at a live gig. Bono does this by wandering through the crowds, randomly licking people’s faces to make them feel special. But no one can quite beat the Amy Winehouse method, which simply involves a couple of deft jabs with the elbow, then a full lunge with a closed fist. Preferably into a teenage girl’s smiling happy face.

3. Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan famously angered his loyal following when he stopped playing the guitar-plus-drum-on-back-plus-symbols-on-knees instrument, instead hiring actual musicians to play the bits that he had once done himself. The upside of this was that the music bit sounded much better live. The downside was that without a one-man-band to marvel at, the audience was forced to listen to his singing voice properly for the very first time. The results of this were not good.

4. Wu Tang Clan

Rap music at its most lethal can be a thrilling experience. But, then, on other occasions, it can look like a dozen men lolloping around on stage with towels covering their faces, all grunting slightly out of time. It was a common problem for the teenage hardcore grime crew, Blazin Squad, and it even effects old timers like the Wu-Tang Clan. Thankfully in the above clip they’re performing in Paris, so no one in the audience will really understand what’s going on.

5. The Beatles

From about 1966 onwards, The Beatles became exclusively a studio band, which meant that audiences around the planet were robbed of their blistering live shows. Shows that could often include Paul McCartney half-heartedly inviting a very reluctant George Harrison to sing a song, before all groaning wearily into their individual microphones in unison. Like the Wu Tang, the above clip is totally forgivable, as they were in Japan at the time.

This was a guest blog by Josh from Interestment, and jolly good it is too.

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Ah, Christmas. Goodwill to all men, figgy puddings, the first dusting of snow, the scent of nutmeg in the air.

Creepy old men who look like retired cowboy transvestites. Said creepy old men bawling Here Comes Santa Claus in a way that’s so off-kilter and tuneless that it inadvertently leads every child who hears it to believe that Santa Claus is some sort of dangerous child molester, and then honking gracelessly into a harmonica for 45 minutes until the festive spirit of goodwill has been obliterated completely.

That’s right – Bob Dylan is bringing out a Christmas album. It will be wonderful.

Trying to second-guess Bob Dylan is about as definitively futile as it gets. He delights in wrong-footing the world, whether it’s by getting arrested near Bruce Springsteen’s house or recording a GPS navigation commentary – both of which he’s done in the last fortnight – or steadfastly refusing to record a listenable album since about 1976. And, by jove, he’s gone and done it again.

Because, you see, Bob Dylan has decided to record an album of Christmas standards. Christmas In The Heart will include festive staples such as Winter Wonderland, Must Be Santa and Little Drummer Boy.

And it promises to tap into the very spirit of Christmas itself – specifically the spirit of answering your door to what you believe are carol singers on Christmas Eve, only to discover that you’re actually being serenaded by a tatty-looking homeless man with a mouse in his pocket, a bottle of cheap gin in his hand and more vomit than one human could ever produce on his own down his trousers.

Oh, alright. It’s for charity. Spoilsports. ABC News reports:

Dylan will donate all his U.S. royalties from album sales to the charity group Feeding America. Feeding America said it expects to provide meals to 1.4 million people this holiday season with the album proceeds. Dylan plans to donate his international royalties to two charity organizations that give meals to needy people in Britain and the developing world.

As obviously philanthropic as this is, we’d like to warn Bob Dylan of two things. First, he should remember that people who make successful Christmas albums often go on to shoot women in the face. Second, he should remember that while making a charity Christmas album is a nice gesture, following it up with a charity Halloween album definitely isn’t. Nobody wants to hear Bob Dylan huff and wheeze his way through, say, a 12-minute acoustic version of Thriller.

Oh, like any of that matters anyway. This is Bob Dylan we’re talking about – he could release an album of armpit farts and the Mojo office would still have to crack open a window to stop everyone drowning in excited jism. So, for once, we’re going to withhold judgement on Christmas In The Heart. But know this, Dylan, you go anywhere near Little Donkey and we’ll cut your bloody balls off.

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9 - Apparently there are shipwrecks on Google Maps. Someone find us one – Informationweek

8 – Bob Dylan is a weirdo – Bite-Dose

7 - 10 things not to say to porn star – Asylum

6 - Look, here’s a freakishly obedient dog – I Am Bored

5 - We love you, Little Jean Claude Van-Damme – Totallycrap

4 – Something new to be terrified about this year: third-hand smoke – NYT

3 - 30 brilliant opening titles to movies – Smashingmagazine

2 - This just in: Darwin Award won by an idiot - Metro

1 - This really exists: the fart silencer - Weirdasianews

OK, OK, yeahyeahyeah, it’s only going to happen in a movie, but sometimes life imitates art, right? Right? Right. We can but hope. Our fingers remain firmly crossed.

Borrell is to star in the new film by Antonia Bird and Irvine Welsh, named The Meat Trade, and will be killed by two grave robbers, played by Robert Carlyle and Colin Firth. Jonathan Edward told the Daily Star:

"It's going to be so much fun. I love horror and I'm a really big fan of Irvine Welsh's work. I loved Trainspotting."

Oh, it’s horror! There should be lots of blood then. Let’s hope Antonia and Irvine get twat number one, Bono, involved. And Keane. And The Feeling. Oh, please The Feeling. And why not stab Luke Pritchard of The Kooks in the mouth with a rusty screwdriver while you’re at it? Why not?

The film is about two body snatchers snatching bodies in Edinburgh and should be released sometime next year. Hecklerspray waits with baited breath. But how will Borrell die, Irvine?

Hecklerspray likes to think Carlyle and Firth will recruit sometime actor Bob Dylan to do this excellent deed. On the release of his band’s debut, Up All Night, Borrell spouted some awful shit out of his mouth-arsehole which decided it was better than Dylan’s first album proper. Get your own back, Bob. But do it for real like Brandon Lee. Come on. Be a sport.

Or, if Bob can’t be reached for some reason, why not contact Morrissey? Borrell did “feel sorry” for Moz when he somehow didn’t manage to draw as big a crowd at V Festival a few years back. People really are stupid.

You are now officially 87% stupider if you voluntarily listen to Johnny Borrell’s arsehole gibberings with feelings of enjoyment. Really. They’ve done tests and everything. We don’t know who “they” are but we’re sure these tests have been done. Kind of.

Too harsh? Not harsh enough we say.

Release Mark Chapman already.

Read more:

Johnny Borrell To Be Murdered In New Movie – AngryApe