N.M.E. Brat bus tour- The Redbox, 13th of January. The lineup on this year's yearly tour from those generous hearts from London didn't exactly inspire me much. If it wasn't for the timely birthday of yours truely, i don't think i would've shown my face around those parts, that night. Headlining were The Stereophonics, looking the best band were Asian Dub Foundation, and tagging along for the ride were The Warm Jets (who supported Blur in the point, apparantly.....) and Theaudience (not a typo, i assure you.) Last years tour seemed a bit duff (where are Tiger, 3 Colours Red and Geneva now ??????), but the year before springboarded The Bluetones and The Cardigans to international stardom. Well, at least being played on Fm104 all the time......... Anyway, arriving in style to the Redbox, soaked to our skins, we strolled in and Theaudience had just hit the stage. I don't think they made too many new fan's with their set, i can't remember too much about them, aside that they had a keyboard player and a good looking female singer. So, I'm gonna compare them to Sleeper just coz they have a female singer. Enough about them. The Warm Jets decided to entertain us then. Once more, I can't say i took much notice of them. They weren't offensivly bad, or anything, they just weren't any good. I'm sure they're lovely lads, but the whole indie rock genre is too over-subscribed to by ppl who just stick to the stale verse-chorus-verse-chorus-break (possibly a solo)-verse-sing a long bit at the end. Yawn. The crowd mainly appeared to be there largely for the Asian Dub Foundation. I expected a N.M.E sponsered night to be full of Gallagher track suit tops, and THAT horrible haircut, you know, the one brushed down at front....... but to my (pleasent) suprise, it was largely an older crowd, with a fair smattering of dance-headz. So when the A.D.F. jumped onto the stage, the crowd at the front went into a frenzied pogo filled danceathon, suiting the music being played. Their mixture of Beastie Boys and Spearhead were the first band to distract myself and me pals from our respective pints. They were fairly kicking, actually, i wish i went up the front. That, i was relieably informed, was *the* place to be. Drat. But the best thing about A.D.F, was that they had their own Bez!!! Yeah, everyband should have their own dancer, who does fuck all but ponce around like a lunatic on stage. He's probably their drug dealer, or something : ) I had heard great things about The Stereophonics. "They're just like the Manics!!!". "The future of rock!!!". I wish. The future of all things sounding like bland (AGAIN!!!!ARGH!!!!) English rock, more like. Well, they were definitely the best of the guitar bands, and I knew one of their songs from somewhere which was pretty alright, but once more I was bored by them. So, nice venue, good crowd, one good band, three shite bands and a lot of (expensive) drink consumed, coz there was little else to do. Oh well. For a publication like the N.M.E. , who apparantly pride themselves on bringing new music to the masses, this was a bit of a let down. They better do better next year, damnit!