Eight years and four albums down the line since the last time they played this stage does anyone still care about The Bluetones? And more importantly, is there any reason now why anyone should?

It's with a mixture of dewy-eyed nostalgia and mild apprehension that this half capacity Liquid Room audience greets Britpop's politest and jangliest sons. Most people here are long standing Bluetones fans but also most are aware that new album "Luxembourg" is crap. Decked out in mod suits, ripped jeans and leather jackets a la Strokes there's something faintly embarrassing about them, like when your dad started dancing at your sister's eighteenth birthday party and then tried to snog her best friend.

The new songs sound better live but the The Bluetones are not a garage band and there's a musty air of calculation hovering like a bad smell around the third-hand Clash-isms of songs like "Liquid Lips". When The Ramones wrote their two-chord anthems back in the seventies it was exciting and fresh because they were stretching their musical ability to its modest limits to get even that far. The Bluetones, on the other hand, are terrific musicians and won't do themselves justice by de-learning everything that made them special in the first place.

So the old songs then. Fantastic of course, although if they set out with the intention of making new fans then they go the wrong way about it. "Bluetonic" and "Slight Return" aside, the set is largely concerned with airing some of the less recognised gems from their back catalogue. "A Parting Gesture", a low-key highlight from their first album, is great, likewise, noisy 1998 single "4 Day Weekend" is a thundering reminder that The Bluetones can rock as hard as anyone without sounding like a largely forgotten indie star having a mid-life crisis.

So, do The Bluetones matter? Well of course not. They never mattered in the first place. Are they worth seeing? Of course yes. They're terrific performers with two tightly packed fistfuls of great songs. Will they make another album? I hope so. Is there a film that videophile singer Mark Morriss hasn't seen? Unlikely. -Ian Martin, Nov.30.03