10. Daft Punk
The Magical X-Factor Robot rock. Daft Punk were perhaps one of the first acts to successfully blend the seemingly disparate worlds of dance and rock. Both forms are energetic and galvanising in their own unique ways, but through combining the two, Daft Punk struck upon a sound that's at once utterly alien and reassuringly familiar. I've heard them described as the Led Zeppelin of our times; a band who can unite worlds through making the rockers rave and the ravers rock. I've not seen them myself. But oh,
the stories I've heard... Their most recent tours have seen them playing from within a giant glowing pyramid. I don't care if they're essentially just pressing buttons on a sequencer up there; the whole thing looks and sounds incredible and they've such a strong back catalogue that there are zero dips in quality during their seamlessly pulsating set. This is what happens when you mix a euphoric rave with psychedelic stadium rock, and the results look unmissable and unforgettable.
9. Queens of the Stone Age
The Magical X-Factor Intensity. I'll admit, when I saw Queens of the Stone Age, I watched them almost reluctantly. It was Sunday night at Glastonbury 2011. They were headlining The Other Stage, and I would much rather have been watching Gruff Rhys on The Park. But anyone will tell you that there's a tendency to just go with the flow at Glastonbury, so circumstances found me within the same field as Josh Homme and co. It took less than five seconds for me to be won over, as the incessant three-note riff of The Feelgood Hit of the Summer thrummed into life at dangerously compelling volumes. What followed was well over an hour of sheer joyous intensity the sort of performance that makes critics throw such terms as face melting, gut busting, blistering and rioutous at rock concerts. It was a perfect setlist that night, as it had been voted for by the fans. But so passionate and virtuoso were the performances of everyone onstage that I know that they could have played anything and still retained my complete and undivided attention. A friend of mine pointed out that they're such an incandescent live band that you could stare at any one of them for the whole show and still feel yourself enthralled by the skill and energy on display. They finished with a breathtakingly intense rendition of A Song For The Dead - so utterly captivating that it might have lasted anywhere between two and 20 minutes during which it felt like the ground was tearing itself apart beneath our feet. Any band that can inspire such apocalyptic hyperbole has to belong amongst the very best that the 21st century has to offer.