Reading Festival, Richfield Avenue, Reading

Axl Rose stages a childish display of temper at Reading and Arcade Fire fails to ignite. But Dizzee Rascal knows how to wow a crowd

Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood? Perhaps.

The phrase nostalgie de la boue – literally "nostalgia for mud", figuratively a yearning for debasement and depravity – could apply to the Reading Festival. The terrain underfoot at Little John's Farm is sodden, partly due to the several days of rain that have lashed Berkshire beforehand, and partly due to the bitter tears of one W Axl Rose.

Guns N' Roses take the stage a full hour late to boos which only intensify every time Pretend Slash plays a solo. They're allowed to widdle on till midnight, at which point the sound is cut, and the Bagpuss-faced Axl slams his microphone down, mouths an unamplified "Fuck you!" and storms off. Moments later, he brings his band back on stage and attempts, unsuccessfully, to restart, whereupon he has the bright idea of instigating a sit-down protest, till he eventually shuffles away defeated. It's the most spectacular toys-pram ejection I can recall in 24 years of attending Reading.

Each bar in the field now represents a different year, with nostalgic line-ups printed on canvas banners, and appropriately it's adjacent to the 1991 bar that I see Chapel Club. The MBV-influenced east London etherealists barely need a stage: everything they do seems to hover six feet off the ground. Back in 1991 they'd have been every rock hack's golden hopes.

Showbiz trouper of the year has to be Foals guitarist Jimmy Smith, who mysteriously vomits on stage but carries on without missing a beat. He's almost outshone by Jack Bevan, who goes for a crowd walk and is prevented from getting back on stage by a bouncer who refuses to believe that the drummer is part of the band.

Twenty-five minutes before the Libertines are due on, excitable gangs are already surging forward. The Libs are unquestionably Reading's real draw, and even Pete Doherty has his health-and-safety head on: "If someone falls down, help 'em back up".

In rap, more than any genre, the aura of authenticity sets cash registers ringing, as the success of mumbling talent vacuum 50 Cent attests. It hasn't harmed Giggs, aka Nathan Thompson from Peckham, a bona fide bad boy who spent two years in prison for gun possession. Giggs's control of the crowd is effortless, and every time the DJ drops the volume on "Don't Go There", everyone knows the words. It's all about the vicarious thrills: a couple of thousand of middle-class teenagers get to throw their gun fingers in the air, but no one gets shot.

Giggs is where Dizzee Rascal was five years ago. Where Dizzee Rascal is today is third on the bill. Where he ought to be is top. The Rascal isn't afraid to throw in a Nirvana or "Funky Drummer" sample to get the party started, and is easily the weekend's biggest crowdpleaser. A pity about Saturday's actual headliners.

"Hi, we're the Arcade Fire from Montreal, Canada," says Win Butler, winningly. "We don't have a hit record so I don't know what the fuck we're doing here, but until someone comes with a hook, we're staying." This sweet self-deprecation buys him a little time, but that goodwill soon expires.

Arcade Fire may intuitively feel like a festival headline band, but the plain truth is that they simply don't have the necessary stature with the casual festival-goer. It doesn't help that they refused to throw in the couple of songs that are familiar to the masses for the first hour, and instead dwell on slow, mellow material from new album The Suburbs to bemused near-silence.

When you're headlining Reading, you're facing a crowd who have been drinking heavily all day. What they don't want is to hear endless navel-gazing country-rock ballads about life in Montreal suburbia. With every passing song, another five yards of empty space open up in front of me as punters wander off to watch Ash or Pendulum instead.

Sunday's headliners are Blink 182. During their original lifespan, the San Diego numbskulls never made it above third on the bill. In 2010, the 12-year-olds who used to adore them are old enough to attend, and treat them as a fond guilty pleasure. Count me out.

On Sunday afternoon, the heavens open again. It puts such a dampener on proceedings – literally – that I find myself muttering "This is the worst band I've heard in my life" at one yelping indie outfit, who turn out to be Los Campesinos!, who I actually rather like. Petty as it may seem in comparison to events in, say, Pakistan, one nevertheless wonders why human beings put themselves through this in the name of fun. But I don't sit down and sulk about it. For one thing, I'm not a baby like Axl. For another, my mind may be nostalgic for mud, but my behind has other ideas.

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