Britain’s V Festival brought out some of the biggest international music acts, including Lily Allen and the Killers. Punk/reggae favorites The Specials also took the stage and surprised concert goers by bringing out Amy Winehouse for their encore. By Winehouse standards, Amy appeared to be relatively coherent – stark contrast to her performance at last year’s V Festival, where she was booed by the crowd and looked like she was about to drop dead any moment.

Amy Winehouse performed on stage at the V Festival in Essex on Saturday, a year after she last sang in public in the UK at the same festival.

The singer, who recently returned from several months in St Lucia, joined The Specials for a medley of their tracks You’re Wondering Now and Ghost Town.

The crowd cheered as the singer came on stage, introduced by the band as “our good friend Amy”.

The Specials will appear at V’s Staffordshire site on Sunday.

A spokesman for Winehouse said: “While living in St Lucia, Amy missed the band’s reunion tour and decided to head to V to catch her favourite artists.

Cancelled concert

“Meeting them backstage, they invited her to guest for them and made her dream come true,” he added.

Winehouse was seen on stage earlier in the day alongside Pete Doherty but she did not sing.

Her successful duet with The Specials was in stark contrast to this time last year, when Winehouse was booed by the V crowd in Staffordshire, although her performance in Essex on the Sunday was well received.

In May this year, Winehouse cancelled her appearance at a concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Island Records music label.

Earlier that month, the pop star was forced to abandon a concert in St Lucia because of poor weather conditions.

However, members of the audience criticised her performance after she appeared to forget the words to a song halfway through and told the audience she was “bored”.

[From BBC News]

But don’t think for a second that Amy Winehouse is anywhere near clean and sober. If the singer is hanging around with fellow train wreck Pete Doherty, you can be certain that erratic behavior is sure to follow.

There was something very familiar about Amy Winehouse as she took to the stage at the V Festival this weekend.

Wearing the same top and trademark beehive as last year, she returned to the limelight after spending a protracted spell in St Lucia recovering from a drink and drug-fuelled meltdown.

But while her hair-style and clothes remained the same, the fresh-faced Amy was a very different person to the one who turned up last year, angering fans by forgetting her words and rolling up late.

Gone were the matted clumps of hair and her scabby, ravaged skin and in its place a clean, glossy mane and a peaches and cream complexion. She even appeared to have put a bit of much-needed weight on her notoriously frail frame.

Her somewhat unpredictable personality was still very much in evidence, though, as she defied security guards to run on stage mid-way through Pete Doherty’s set.

Bouncers asked her to move but she remained put until Doherty dedicated a song to her.

She grabbed the microphone and called to the crowd repeatedly: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Peter Doherty.’

Towards the end of the set she kissed the singer on the mouth and shortly afterwards they ran off stage together arm-in-arm.

[From The Daily Mail]

Kissing Pete Doherty on the mouth must qualify as life-endangering. Yikes! Anyway, the Daily Mail has a great side-by-side comparison of photos from Amy at last year’s V Festival and this year’s, and the difference is pretty shocking. It’s amazing that Amy even survived that year, given how gaunt and messed-up she looked back then. But she still has a long way to go.

Amy Winehouse is shown outside court on 7/23/09. Credit: Fame Pictures