NME Carling Premier TourCardiff UniversityJanuary 1999

Despite all the recent press attention, the Llama Farmers prove once again that they’re just not ready to live up to all the hype. While the likes of 'Paper Eyes' and 'Always Echoes' fizz away like a coke bottle about to erupt, the rest of the set still seems to fall flat the moment they open it. Delakota remain lumbered with the 'former Senseless Things' label due to the presence of former drummer Cass Browne, and the murky sound levels and lack-lustre audience reaction with which they’re greeted do little to change the general consensus tonight.

Idlewild's updated post-hardcore, punk rock racket sounds not unlike a landmine exploding inside your cranium. By now everyone knows the script, Roddy stumbles about, mumbling and shouting like your local drunk, hell-bent on proclaiming his philosophies to the world, Rod decides it would be a good idea if he flossed his teeth with his guitar strings, and the venue becomes a single mass of heaving, sweating, screaming flesh, oblivious to the concept of personal injury.

Suffering from having to headline over Idlewild, a DJ Shadow-less UNKLE fail to captivate the imagination, and where their bass heavy beats and cut-up scratching should have filled the room, they are left playing to an emptying venue. Tonight, the man from UNKLE, he say 'no thanks, not just now'.