Still on a high from the previous evening, Saturday begins with a liquid breakfast and a trip to the Main Stage to catch LA's Mariachi El Bronx, who cheekily introduce themselves as “The Bad News Bears from Reno, Nevada” before immediately launching in to a short but perfectly executed set of Mariachi music. From the bemused looks on some faces there are several people here who would rather be watching the band's hardcore iteration, but the first act of the day, the likes of 'Right Between the Eyes' and 'Wildfires' make for a gentle and novel start to the day's proceedings.

Remaining on the Main Stage, the upbeat pop-punk of Wrexham's Neck Deep are more to everyone's taste, and despite the current controversy surrounding the band the devotion of their fans is evident. A plethora of circle pits open and close across the crowd whilst the bodies of crowdsurfers are flung mercilessly towards the stage to tracks such as 'Damsel in Distress' and 'What Did You Expect?'. You can't fault the band, nor the crowd for the matter, but for someone who has seen the likes of New Found Glory several times in the past, it's nothing groundbreaking.

Taking a breather we navigate back towards the NME stage in order to catch American Football for the second time this year. Unsurprisingly their set is comprised only of a handful of tracks, but the likes of 'Honestly?' and 'The Summer Ends' still sound as fresh as they did in the late '90s, and though few people in attendance realise the enormity of what a band liked AF coming to Leeds means, those that do offer the quiet respect the tracks deserve. Finishing with the anthemic 'Never Meant', it's clear that there's going to be more than one person going home to practice their guitar noodles.

Over on the Lock Up, Aussie punks The Smith Street Band play to a disappointingly small crowd; their set resting heavily on tracks from last year's Throw Me in the River. It's a shame the band draws such little numbers, especially given the vocal support in the past from the likes of Frank Turner. Unfortunately it's probably attributed to the fact both Panic At the Disco and All Time Low are gracing the Main Stage at the same time, but given the relevance of either band to a 20-something punk-at-heart, we're more than happy where we are.

Following The Smith Street Band, Philidelphia's The Menzingers draw a somewhat bigger crowd, allowing us to relive their support slot for The Offspring from just a few days previous. How they're not bigger I don't know, but with tracks like 'The Obituaries' and 'Burn After Writing' as well as the now-expected cover of The Bouncing Soul's 'Kate Is Great' thrown in to the mix, it's difficult to imagine them staying on the fringes of skate-punk for much longer. In contrast, folk three-piece Bear's Den play the Festival Republic tent and offer up a more subdued but no less heartfelt half an hour for those that find tonight's headliners Mumford and Sons a little too much to stomach.

Keeping things suitably pop-punk however, given the rest of the day's acts, we opt to spend the last two sets of the evening forgoing the middle class Mumfords niceties in favour of both Simple Plan and New Found Glory, both of whom pull what is arguably the biggest crowds The Lock Up has seen all weekend. With both bands considered pop-punk royalty. Unsurprisingly both bands litter their set with a handful of classics; the tracks which soundtracked the adolescence of everyone in attendance. It may seem a little trite to see tattooed twenty-somethings singing the lyrics to the likes of Simple Plan's 'I'd Do Anything' or New Found Glory's 'All Downhill From Here' with such adoration, but these are songs that meant everything to their fans at one point or another; the reason many of them became fans of pop-punk and alternative music to begin with. To see two such bands back to back, in a setting that was once synonymous with the halcyon days of pop-punk, at least as far as Britain is concerned, well, it doesn't really get much better.

Walking through the campsites at Leeds Festival, one would be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled head-first in to a kind of post-modern Last Days of Caligula - the heady scent of perfumed Roman's replaced by piss and Lynx Africa; the Italian wine by Somersby Cider; the opium by some questionable MDMA bought from a bloke called 'Greg'. It's horrific. It's eye-opening. It's beautiful. After all, where else on the festival calendar could punks and metalheads camp in such close proximity to those who look like they appreciate both a 'cheeky Nandos' and the word banter? Answer: Nowhere. Of course, it's not all about the social side. And though there are handfuls of people that only venture out of Sodom (Yellow Camp) and Gomorrah (Red Camp) to watch the headliners and swing their jaws to the various DJs situated around the site, Leeds wouldn't attract the disparate crowd it does, if it wasn't for its eclectic line-ups.

The festival does still lean more towards the alternative side of things, but this year especially there seems to be a little more of a mainstream flavour populating the site's several stages. For us however the weekend starts on the BBC Introducing Stage and with Teeside's NARCS providing us with a weighty wake-up call that leaves us feeling dirty before the festival's even really began. And we mean that in the best way. Elsewhere The Gaslight Anthem are traditionally underwhelming, though 'The Patient Ferris Wheel' is a welcome inclusion in an otherwise lacklustre mid-afternoon set. 

Thankfully however The Cribs ('We're from Wakefield') are their usual oikish selves, providing the Main Stage with a smattering of their finest urchin pop. 'Mirror Kisses' and 'Another Number' make an appearance, as does 'Men's Needs', but we're a little surprised to see festival-favourite 'Hey Scenesters' left off the list. Though we had several gripes about the over-zealous festival security over the weekend, we didn't have it nearly half as bad as Evian Christ, the DJ, who may or may not have been detained for sounding like branded holy water, pulled out of his Reading set that weekend thanks to his experiences with the Leeds security. We hear he's still available for baptisms though.

We make our first excursion to the Lock-Up stage in order to catch home-grown pop-punks Moose Blood, whose short set pulls an impressive crowd for the middle of the afternoon. Unsurprisingly, the huge amount of guys in Boston Manor t-shirts that have littered the site seem to have congregated here, climbing over each other desperate to shout back the words to the likes of 'Boston' or 'Bukowski' as if their lives depended on it. Back on the Main Stage, Jamie T keeps both old and new fans happy with a set that takes in all three of his albums in equal measure. It's the older tracks that go down a storm however, with both 'Shelia' and final track 'Zombie' offering the most raucous of singalongs of the day thus far.

The weekend's first offering of an artist you're not likely to see anywhere else this summer comes in the form of Kendrick Lamar. Surprisingly, the backbone of his set comes from his second album Good Kid, mAAd city, and not this year's acclaimed To Pimp a Butterfly, even the latter's 'Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe' features entirely new verses, which does nothing to aid the slightly lacking crowd, most of whom are there to see The Libertines later. A lack of enthusiasm from the crowd shouldn't detract from his performance however, and covers from Tupac and A$AP Rocky do get the crowd going a little more than other tracks. It's 'King Kunta' that finally sees Lamar's energy transferred in to the crowd, his previous single and penultimate track finally getting everyone on their feet.

When the Libertines played Leeds in 2010, it should have been more than it was. It should have signified the start of something beautiful. It wasn't. And when the stage lights dimmed on the band that evening, they went back to their respective lives, respective bands and respective drugs. This year it feels different. There's a new album a little more than a week away and the band look healthier than they have in a decade. Is 2015 the year the band finally sail the Good Ship Albion back to Arcadia? It seems so.

 Taking to the stage to a deafening noise from the crowd, the band launch immediately in to 'Horrorshow' and from there on out there's little in the way of relent. New tracks are effortlessly merged with classics, as if the band have never truly been away. And in the hearts and heads of the hordes of adoring fans, they haven't. There's little in the way of crowd interaction from both Barat and Doherty, but with the newly lit fires beneath their feet it matters not. The sheer joy the band take from performing is evident, whilst their trademark sharing of the mic stand seems far more genuine than in recent years. Tracks such as 'Time for Heroes' and 'What Katie Did' are unsurprisingly early crowning points, but it's the lyrics of the newer material which provide the goosebumps; the chorus of 'Gunga Din' offering what is probably the most poignant of the night.

With the drugs behind them and the tabloids snapping at their heels, The Libertines are a band with their sights set solely on the future. What that future holds remains to be seen, but if tonight is anything to go by, it shows that demons can be conquered, irreconcilable relationships can be reconciled and that a band that everyone had more or less given up can rise from the ashes and ignite a passion in the chests of thousands. If this is the true sound of Albion, than I don't want to be anywhere else.