Everything gets sucked into the mainstream eventually

At the tail end of the massively overpopulated British Festival season comes the corporate friendly V99. V99 is a safe condom of a festival. Pristine, protected.

Seemingly designed for the arena-rock- festival audience, V99 comes sponsored by its own soft drink, airline, record label, TV company, and sportswear firm. After a bizarre intro tape of Incubation (taken from a Joy Division single) and some wonderfully evocative images, the Manics come on stage. Consumer Manic and Springsteen Manic in standard workwear, and Glitter Manic wearing pop socks a skirt and chuff knows what else, looking a bit like a sad parody of who he used to be.

Whilst Faster was on fire, You Stole The Sun and Tsunami functionally brilliant - after all even the Manics on a bad day is better than most other people at their best - it's Masses Against The Classes that offers the first future rays of hope. It sounds like some ancient Holy Bible or First Republic era material, with some divine lyrics about winter, being togther, united against the world, all that kind of stuff. But i don't really remember it.

In my balaclava outfit with sailor suit things get a little tough as the Rugbyboys turn up. La Tristesse Durera is still the last great baggy single, whilst Kevin Carter and Everything Must Go are dispatched in a passionless fashion. I just don't feel that the Manics are on full power tonight, especially after the breathtaking T in The Park show. Ready For Drowning (yawn... why not play Nobody Loved You?) is about as exciting as paint drying.

It's when the field darkens as the edges of light disappear from view a view calls out "I knew someday I was going to die....", Of Walking Abortion steamrollers over the popkids. It's weird though, seeing Richeys anthem to the elimination of the male race falling on deaf ears, performed by a castrated trilogy of millionaires. And still sounding excellent.

As Elvis Impersonator shimmers into life one last time, as Motorcycle Emptiness - with the stunning Rumble Fish short film adding poigancy, beauty, and a tear to my eye as the ghost of Richey mounts the motorbike - burns, the past drives off into the sunset and the future looks empty. To compensate, James starts playing homage to old Manics with the intro to Guns N Roses Sweet Child Of Mine, and it melds into the ever faithful b-side of tsunami, Motown Junk.

The rest of the set is predictable, Empire, Australia (a visionless statement of apathy), You Love Us, the ploddy If You Tolerate This, and a tired Design For Life. Maybe I have too much faith. I feel perhaps for the first time that they are in danger of becoming a spent creative force celebrating past glories. In GQ this month Nicky says quite clearly "The past year has made us realise we've got to change drastically." Shaun said elsewhere "We've turned into everything we despised and hated when we began." James says the band are, for the first time, unsure of where they're going, what they're doing, who they are. Where do we go now?

As ee Cummings said, Progress is a comfortable Disease.

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