• More news, reviews, videos and tour dates
• Buy music from Amazon
• news RSS Feed

The man from UNKLE flings 12 inches of vinyl into the crowd and slopes off. His parting gift is pounced on by impeccably-trainered young things, baying for more. The floor is sticky, faces are flushed, and one thing is clear. There may be two distinct musical cultures sharing a venue tonight, but it's nice to see the international language of fuck, yeah! being understood by all.

If you look closely, there's a kind of subtle migration going on during the first night of the NME Premier Tour. Two populations are gently filtering past one another, depending on who's onstage. Teenagers in T-shirts shuffle forwards to investigate the Llama Farmers. Cargo-trousered 20-somethings lounge patiently at the back, awaiting the sound of crossfaders, unaware that guitars are about to pin them to the wall. For if the Farmers' fusion of jaw-length haircuts and big riffs isn't exactly a brave modernist novelty, songs like 'Big Wheels', their current single and grown-up label debut, rumble with the kind of confidence that cuts off small talk. Despite their recent threats, the youth of Greenwich (their bass player still can't vote) don't actually blow Idlewild offstage. But there's a strong wind behind them.

Gradually, though, the frayed T-shirts of rock give way to groovier gear stageside, and DELAKOTA demand that we "get it orwn!". With the help of their bongo and gong, obviously. It takes all of ten seconds of 'Show Me The Door''s low-slung groove to induce a party onstage, and suddenly, we're no longer in the Northwest on a cold Tuesday night: we're in some balmy clime where the Mondays meet Stax for a sun-kissed cocktail.

From humble fraggle beginnings, Delakota frontman Cass has turned into some weird cross between a tambourine-wielding sprite and a classic nasal-rock frontman; a man who wiggles his bum and looks cool doing it. So too, his band - all six of them - two-step on the line between sampladelia and classic shapes, between the sussed mash-up of 'C'Mon Cincinnati' and 'The Rock''s simple loveliness. A technical glitch and an uncalled-for sax solo apart, their moves are sure-footed.

And although Delakota sign off impishly with a glitterbomb, IDLEWILD are here to provide the emotional pyrotechnics. The tropical poolside dancefloor suddenly shape-shifts into a writhing moshpit, Roddy Woomble chucks bits of his soul up into the microphone, and guitarist Rod now rivals bassist Bob in the Really Violent Guitar-playing stakes. There is little mystery to the Idlewild approach to making music, as critics will attest, but there remains utter fascination in songs like 'I Am A Message'. People in expensive skate gear waiting for UNKLE are rapt, as though understanding, finally, that the euphoria of punk rock is the same thing as the rush of a breakbeat pile-up.

Which is exactly what happens, in reverse, when Idlewild fans linger on at the back and watch three blokes play some records. It's hard to account for the awe that's inspired tonight by grown men destroying vinyl copies of 'Psyence Fiction' in pursuit of widdly noises, but UNKLE's set - Mo'Wax boss James Lavelle mixing, Scratch Perverts Tony Vegas and Prime Cuts on two decks either side - is amazing. Richard Ashcroft's disembodied vocal floats in the air as a hailstorm of beats and DJ Shadow mood-pieces descends, then is lost in a blizzard of speed-of-sound (or should that be the sound of speed?) scratching. A similar scenario unfolds with 'Rabbit In Your Headlights', and the as-yet unreleased Ian Brown track, 'Be There'. But instead of marking a soulless, postmodern experience (no instruments, no flesh and blood, just technicians and the ghost in the machine) UNKLE's attempt to prove that turntables are just as exciting as, y'know, guitars, pays off in full. People are cheering for, pogoing to scratching. A boy in an Ian Brown (circa '89) shirt may actually be babbling. An understanding, of sorts, has been reached.

To read all our reviews first - days before they appear online - check out NME magazine, on sale every Wednesday

For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our sister site, NME Video.

• Previous : London W1 Improv Theatre
• Next Album Review : The EPs