"I've just had the best six hours of my life," said Michael Eavis to a waiting throng of journalists on Sunday morning.

The night before, after meeting Kylie Minogue, the 74-year-old organiser of the Glastonbury Festival and one-time 50s crooner revealed he had been to the underground Rabbit Hole bar at the top of the Park area where he had sung before an astonished audience, and then whisked down to Shangri-La to join the crowds.

"I've never enjoyed myself so much, and I hope you enjoyed yourselves too," he said.

"It has been the best party for me – the weather, the full moon and last night in a crowd of 100,000 people there was not one drunk person, isn't that extraordinary?"

While the staff at Brothers Bar and those nursing sore heads on Monday morning might have questioned that assertion, there was little doubt that the 2010 festival will be hard to beat.

The festival will be remembered for years for the heat, the number of surprise guests wowing the crowds and what turned out to be a three-day mass community sing-a-long.

From Rolf Harris on Friday morning to Stevie Wonder on Sunday night, the fields of Worthy Farm rang out to thousands of voices joining in joyous celebration of the music that had brought them to this corner of Somerset.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise guest appearance with the Scissor Sisters, The Edge made up for U2 having to cancel as Friday night's headliners by playing guitar on Muse's encore cover of his band's smash hit Where the Streets Have no Name while Lou Reed, Shaun Ryder and Snoop Dogg guested with Gorillaz.

Mr Eavis said of The Edge: "He enjoyed the experience and has had a taste of playing here now so I'm sure the band are really keen to do it when it suits them."

And Mr Eavis took on the microphone himself on the Pyramid Stage to sing for the first time, a duet with soul legend Stevie Wonder of Happy Birthday.

It marks a remarkable turnaround for the dairy farmer.

Until two years ago, when he appeared on stage to announce Jay-Z, he had shunned involvement in the festivals musical programme.

Mr Eavis showered praise on the local area for its tolerance and willingness to welcome 177,500 festival-goers every year.

"It's got to be something to do with this area's non-conformist Methodist roots," he said.

"We do things differently here. I was speaking to friends in Dorset and they said that there would never be a festival like this there.

"Central Somerset is the only place you could do it.

"We would never had succeeded without that non-conformist element."

He admitted he had not always been a popular figure, and had not been considered the best local dairy farmer in the 1980s.

However, he said the festival industry that has grown up around Pilton had helped bring jobs and money to the area.

"People are proud of it now," he said.

"There is no unemployment in this area. Living nearby is a great feather in their cap.

"Glastonbury is the envy of the world and it happens here in Pilton."

As the dusty campers make their way home and the clean-up begins the hot dry weather is likely to continue, making the job of returning Worthy Farm to its role in Somerset agriculture much easier than in recent years.