Virgin Trains Move Festival 2004: Sunday

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Three days on the town in Manchester and it starts to catch up with you. Lethargy sets in and laziness can be forgiven. The Ordinary Boys come at just the right time and make perfect sense. Though the jury's still out on the wholesale past robbery that ensues through the likes of 'Week In, Week Out' - their undeniable standout, there's no denying that the Brighton boys have a solid hardcore fanbase after months of touring. They lap up every Smiths-slung phrase, and dance wildly through the likes of 'Talk, Talk'.

And if you can get over the fact that it's Billy Bragg fronting The Specials, shooting Paul Weller, and then dancing on his grave, then all is fine. Frontman, Preston certainly has enough ugly/rough charm to make pretty teenage girls strip on the spot, but it leaves the more cynical among us a bit confused. The word 'ordinary' is certainly banded around by much of the crowd, but it's quite charming indie, nonetheless.

Nothing's quite as weird as the Beta Band, however. Having slowly wormed their way into the populous from humble, experimental beginnings, we still wonder whether anyone here has heard the excellent new single, 'Out-Side' which, like most Beta Band songs, is succinctly compressed melodies bursting at the seems with originality and ideas. The crowd seem unmoved by this brilliance however, put off by the three-way percussion and looping keyboards, it's almost like the Scots' perfect pop goes over their heads. Never mind.

Because for everyone who ignores the Beta Band there's that 1976 rebirth in the form of the New York Dolls, who apparently were punk before Punk was even born. It shows. Now, we're sure that by '70s standards this shit was good, but frankly Mr. Shankly frontman, David Johansen, resembles a Mick Jagger look-alike more crinkly that the Stone himself. If that's possible. Prancing around like Nicky Wire with a feather boa and a belly piercing, fearful mothers cry 'cover up your stomach'. All the DIY dads meanwhile, are having the time of their lives. Generation gaps mean that one person's shit, no-tuned pub band is another's generation defining punk heroes. Sometimes things are meant to stay in the past.

Like Morrissey for instance. You don't come back. Again. You don't return having been in the Most Influential Band Ever, having left, had bigger commericial success on your own and then having incited racism among your Linda McCartney worshipping disciples before being exiled. You simply don't have your biggest hit at the age of 44. You leave writing polemic, biting brilliance like 'Irish Heart, English Blood' and poison acoustic pop of 'First Of The Gang To Die' to the likes of... And there's the void. For every new Coldplay (™ Q Magazine) there's never a new Morrissey.