At the improbably early hour of 11am, The Pipettes' simple brand of 1960's revivalist girl pop brought Brighton beachfront to life before making way for The Streets.

Despite it being "still breakfast time" for Mike Skinner, The Streets had the measure of their audience and, aware it wasn't vastly populated by fans, drew heavily on the first, most popular album.

In a set dominated by well-known tracks, they struck a good balance of upbeat and melancholy material. Some of the crowd participation stuff was out of place, but Skinner sprinting to the back and crowd surfing to the stage was pretty impressive.

Up next were consummate crowd-pleasers McFly, who took care of entertaining the bookends of the wide age range present. Parents and small children danced gleefully as the band delivered the note-perfect harmonies and painstaking rock-star choreography at which they excel.

Reliably professional musicianship and eerily faithful versions of their hits weren't exactly exciting, but did fit the bill for the day.

I suspect that a temporary beachside stage, T4 presenters and television cameras are all it takes to make McFly feel very at home.

After Mcfly, the audience was slowly gearing up to be starstruck. The mere presence of diminutive, but disproportionately famous, N.E.R.D. frontman Pharrell Williams was causing a stir.

Unfortunately, the biggest audience of the day, much less familiar with N.E.R.D.'s music than their poster boy, was conspicuously flat.

Having ludicrously thanked everyone for tolerating "the conditions" on a warm summer's day, the outlook wasn't great for the band themselves.

Luckily, they remembered the winning move: hoist all the best-looking girls on stage and play your biggest hit. Things can turn on a dime.

Therefore, in a bizarre scene, Lapdance brought together parents, children, all and sundry for an impressive final hurrah.