THE NME Brat Awards were set up as a riposte to the perceived industry sycophancy of the Brits. The only problem is that NME readers rarely illustrate better taste than the arse-licking industry insiders and Oasis, The Verve or Radiohead inevitably sweep the board whether they've released any records or not. Fortunately, for all their pretentions, the writers of said organ do know what they're talking about and the annual Brats tour and London gigs tend to showcase the creme de la crème of musical talent regardless of commercial popularity.

Hence the adorable COLDPLAY take to the stage at Sheffield University to the muted welcome of around fourteen people, of whom one is Mick Head, and the others probably roadies. This is the problem with opening such shindigs where it is fashionable not to arrive until the final encore and simply implausible to digest dinner in time for the opening act. But Coldplay aren't exactly used to stadium gigs and their delicious melancholy is suited to theses sort of intimate occasions. Frontman Chris Martin bemuses the crowd with some inane if utterly charming sentiments about the band's new piano and apologises profusely in case we don't like his new song, although he suspects we will, given time. The new song is 'Trouble', a brittle ode to reminiscence combining a delicate piano melody with the soulsearching fragility of Chris' vocals. Chris beams like a kid in a sandpit and then plays 'Yellow', a song he only wrote last week but one which sounds like a future spring morning classic. Coldplay won't be opening proceedings for much longer.

By the time Pete Voss swaggers onstage, the vastly increased audience numbers cannot hide the fact the crowd is hopelessly unprepared for CAMPAG VELOCET. Somewhat like Shaun Ryder with 1000 volts being pumped up his arse, Pete Voss launches into a tirade of mostly unintelligable vocal malice whilst being soundtracked by terrorist rhythms and hard, uncompromising guitar dance. This is 21st century punk rock. Sex Pistols attitude and forward thinking karmic coercian combining to create a thrilling, adrenalin pumping maelstrom of fist-clenching self-belief. Aside from the worst bowl haircut since shoegazing died a long overdue death, Pete Voss is a proper rock star. Gallagher, Brown, and Viscious all rolled into one pyre of incendiary attitude and utterly compelling vocal hypnosis. He also wins the award for longest and most frenetic abuse of maracas ever in his attempt to win an Oscar for energy expenditure whilst flailing like a drowning baboon.

LES RYTHMES DIGITALES are certainly not leading us gloriously into a new Millennium of experimentation and broken musical boundaries. Instead, they prance around in boiler suits like the Pet Shop Boys on acid and pump out an inane pastiche of 80s cheese without being arsed to disguise the fact its mostly pre-recorded. The Ghostbusters theme tune was one particular gem in a set of similar dirge enlivened only by the hyperactive Jacques Lu Cont's laughable posturing. Synths and more synths and some samples, then some more samples and...oh...hold on...no, more synths. Dire. But for some reason, the crowd love it and leap up and down in an arm-waving mosh of adulation that suggests the mullet may soon be resurrected. Bemusing. But not nearly as bemusing as the gaggle of nubile Scandinavian girls chanting 'You're so beautiful' at the gnarled Mick Head during every juncture in SHACK'S set. Twenty years ago a young girl stood in the front row of his gigs and similarly doted. She ended up marrying so bloke called Liam Gallagher It's taken the two elapsing decades for Mick's genius to be recognised. As the teenage frontman of The Pale Fountains, he was only ever on the periphery of the indie scene and a protracted relationshp with heroin consigned him to the sidelines while the Roses, Mondays, Oasis and Blur conquered the arena of which he should already have been crowned king. The awesome beauty of 'Waterpistol' might have righted the situation in the early nineties if customary bad luck and shambolic organisation hadn't conspired to lose the mastertapes until 1998. But NME proclaimed Mick 'the greatest songwriter of his generation' last year and Shack's LP 'HMS Fable' stole the hearts of pretty much everyone who listened to it.

Tonight, there's a sense of triumph at an achievement long overdue.The confirmed brilliance of 'Comedy' and 'Cornish Town' are dazzlingly reworked for live performance and a host of rockier new songs inspire mass enthusiasm. Top notch, then, apart from Lu Cont and his ghostbusters. Still, they had Heavy Stereo on the NME tour once, so they don't always get it right.

Guernica