Support band Foil were so loud you suspect Therapy? hired them to dull your hearing so that you would not hear any bum notes they might play. Loud is not necessarily bad however, and Foil's heady brew of punk metal with a light dusting of Green Day dumbness was exciting and...well...loud. Songs and lyrics were no surprises given the genre ("I'm waiting for the end of the world", "I can't wait for you to come all over me" - mmmmm....nice), but were delivered with a great degree of passion (and loudness - don't forget the loudness) such that Foil's appearance was a welcome one.

Therapy? have had a couple of years in the wilderness and have now returned, with a new line-up and minus the facial hair and frilly shirts. They are all the better for it, as the live sound they are capable of whipping up measures a 4 at least on the twister scale. All sweaty passion and tattoos, Therapy? played crowdpleasers such as "Knives", "Nowhere" and "Teethgrinder", as well as new material such as the joyriding thrill of "Church Of Noise". All went down well, both with devoted audience and band - obviously enjoying themselves ("Fan-fucking-tastic", as Andy Cairns put it after about every other song).

A good rapport was established between band and crowd, with Cairns and bassist Michael McKeegan introducing songs with dedications (such as to the gone-to-soon Dermot Morgan) and jokes of varying quality (stick to the music, Andy...). New drummer Graham Hopkins equipped himself well, despite being accused of being a "shitehawk" by caring sharing Andy, and the imposing vampiric figure of other new boy, Martin McCarrick, slotted into the Therapy? line-up perfectly.

Sweat poured in abundance as fiery tune after fiery tune spouted from the band like flames from a furnace. An emotion-wracked "Diane" was the only thing even slightly resembling a slowie, then with a scorching version of "Screamager" it was all over, Andy ripping off his guitar's strings and offering it to the crowd to be played. McKeegan pulled a young girl from the front of the stage and gave her his bass, letting her whack away at it as the band filed off and she was the only one left, rather awkwardly hitting random notes from an instrument almost as big as she was.

Therapy?'s comeback is perfectly-timed. Now that Britpop has shuffled off into unfashionable obscurity, bands with a little more excitement and passion can emerge, blinking into the sunlight to make music interesting again. The flipside to the seriousness and melancholy of groups like Radiohead, Therapy? are right up there with the best of them.