When drawing up lists of favourite shows at festivals, people tend to end up, unsurprisingly, with their favourite band on top. It’s the nature of the festival beast: you’re more than often buzzing around like a bee in search of the most delicious musical nectar, and, when discovering something that sounds fresh, might still move on, taking a note for later, looking for the next new delicacy. But you will make time for bands you love, hang on there in the scorching, dusty tent, because it feels right. Which is what I did for Editors, this time around- and many other times before, and very likely, after. Logic would have dictated to move on to Janelle Monáe on the Main Stage, who, according to all accounts, put on a wildly entertaining show. But there is no logic when it comes to matters of the heart.

Few bands that I got to know and like in the early noughties are still around. Some still theoretically exist, but no longer tour. Or if they do, the spark is gone, they know it, you know it, but everyone shows up for the sake of the good old days. Not so Editors. They soldier on and they put their hearts in it. They regularly release new albums, and these albums still sound amazing to ears attuned to their brooding but uplifting brand of post punk. They might not end up on year-end lists anymore, not because the music isn’t good, but because the times have changed around them, and children these days seek different sounds. But some of us, we’ll always have Editors. It’s not that I don’t listen to whatever is all the rage right now, but I perhaps no longer form the same kind of bonds I did in the past. It’s a bit like trying out all the fancy ramen restaurants in town. I do, I like them, some more than others, but when I really need good soup, it’ll be a nice pot of simple chicken broth. And when I need my ears to rejoice, I will put on an Editors album.

Therefore, the temptation on Janelle notwithstanding, I didn’t budge from the Revolut tent, and I know you’re expecting this by now, Editors delivered. They’ve always toured a lot, conspicuously more than other British acts, in Central and Eastern Europe, and that shows too. There is a hard core of dedicated fans, so the front of the tent is packed, hot, sweaty, intense. There is a bit more space at the back, but people still religiously mouth all the lyrics. I have written about the wondrous life of Tom Smith’s hands before, it has lost nothing of its special charms. It still feels as if he is inhabited by the music, as if the show is not just for show, he means it and his body becomes a physical expression of the beat. The set is compact and hit heavy, as one expects at a festival. The lion’s share is from more recent albums, EBM, the most recent, from 2022,having been commended by NME as ‘stuffed full of sky-scraping apocalyptic bangers’, which is a neat way to sum up what one expects of the Editors.

But then the true heavyweight is unleashed, Munich, the early hit that put them on the map, and rightly so. Editors concerts work best as a conduit for joyously exorcising complicated emotions. People are fragile things, that applies to us and everybody else, and although we should know by now, we go on and break each other, and then seek to atone for our sins in a heaving, sweltering tent. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Sometimes it even works as a magnet for wandering souls. Throughout the years, I don’t recall any other festival concerts where so many people just walking by stopped, listened and decided to stay, without ever having heard the band before. It’s that feeling of communion, of a strange, cathartic energy to the music, of an escape. It’s a common fixture at Editors concerts to end with a rendition of Papillon, a song about being stuck in a desperate situation, and despite everything, seeking your way out. The gentle promise of this hour in a hot, dark tent illuminated by bright flashes of light is that you will find it.