Amanda and I attended the XFM live event "Winter Wonderland" at the Brixton Academy last night, their annual Christmas night out - and dear oh Lord, there were a lot of slimy brussel sprouts to chew to get through to the sweet treats on the dessert menu.

Let’s just start by saying that Morning Runner and Kubb are a nasty, vile, vacuous and meaningless major label A&R person’s idea of “dead certs”. A nice bit of wrought-out subway busker style vocal angst? Check. Some anonymous but not bad looking masculine gents who won’t seem like malnourished freaks in America? Check. Rigid, static, sleepwalking performances doled out in the uninspired manner that canteen workers slop out beans on to a plate? Check.

Morning Runner are so bloody mediocre, so appallingly bereft of originality, hooks, meaning or purpose, in fact, that it’s a safe bet that their A&R rep thought they’d do incredibly well in the current climate – after all, they’ve already been crowbarred on to Top of the Pops despite not ever having had a Top 40 hit (the usual qualifying factor, after all), blagged a support sort with Coldplay, and managed to get XFM airplay into the bargain. Some heavy pushing is obviously going on with these chaps, and it’s safe to say that their promotional budget for this month probably outstrips the annual economy of a third world country.

Something in their rigid body posturing, their nervous between-song banter, and their uncertain performance points towards the fact that they know damn well they’re not worthy of any this. It’s not as if they apologise as such, but the lead singer does say “They’ll be some superb bands on later – they’ll tear the place down”. His modesty and nervous hesitance on the word “later” is touching. The sad truth is, though, that the moody angst rock he apologetically pedals is available quite freely all across MySpace, where kids twiddling around with atmospheric keyboard riffs, loud guitars and constipated vocal stylings are available on every other account. Shameful.

The lead singer from Kubb also strolls out to do an acoustic set of his band’s material. As performers go, he makes for an average subway busker. The songs are trite, too, like out-takes from a non-existent “Best of Major Label Bands from the Eighties that Never Really Made It” compilation. Wild Weekend must be turning purple with rage, or kicking themselves that they too never wrote a song called “Wicked Soul” (eurgh) that just about tickled the Top Thirty. Again, there’s really no excuse for this sort of nonsense. It’s not even as if it will SELL, for crying out loud. Amanda and I get so bored that we begin talking about a concept band I’ve invented called “Chubb”, who all wear blue uniforms and sing songs about the trials and tribulations of the locksmith and security alarm industry. The idea of them in my mind’s eye is considerably more entertaining than what’s unfolding on stage.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus for the Go! Team, then, a band who launched their first product on their own record label, made their own videos, had no major label budget, and handled their own initial promotion. As an album, “Thunder Lightning Strike” shows a cheeky sense of humour, a relentless energy and a splash of individual colour that’s been so rare throughout 2005. Combining hip-hop with TV theme samples, distorted sixties guitars and clattering rhythms, it sounds as if it should have been done before, but so far as I can remember it hasn’t been.

Live on stage, they stand in a “V” formation frugging and spinning all over the place, like small children after eating a crate of Nerds. Bright bold colours light up the stage, we are ordered to shake our booties, and after the tedium of the opening acts it feels even more invigorating, like a sharp tin of Red Bull down the gullet. There’s an infectious sense of energy that comes with the best and most frivolous live bands (Misty’s Big Adventure have a similar effect on me) and a tinge of excitement that comes with not knowing quite what’s around the corner, or even whether the joyful chaos can actually hold together (it always does). It’s playful, it’s fun, but it’s also probably the best music I’ve heard in 2005. “Bottle Rocket” sounds even better in the live environment, with already all the hints of being a dancefloor classic.

The energy doesn’t last for long though, because Athlete take the stage afterwards, unfortunately. The success of this outfit has troubled me for some time now. It’s hard to know what’s more worrying, their sub-Coldplay ditherings dripping out like the last splashes of a golden shower from Chris Martin’s cock, or their tired forays into bar-room boogie. Then there’s the small fact that they have the onstage presence of a few out-of-work plumbers who just happen to have nipped by to entertain the public – and not especially chatty plumbers at that. They don’t even ask cheerfully for a cup of tea, though they do whine in their songs about the general room temperature, so I suppose they are more concerned with sorting the radiators out first. The audience sing along and cheer, but it’s just complete fucking rubbish to my ears – at its best the very worst of Britpop. I text a friend to say “Few things are more coma inducing than watching Athlete play live”. He replies with “Make sure you liberally douse yourself in talcum powder, Dave, it fends them off. Bastards”. Somewhat strangely though, an itchy rash does develop on my foot shortly afterwards.

It’s easy to mock Richard Ashcroft, of course, so I won’t bother. Whilst I’m not a massive fan of either The Verve or his solo output, at least you can recognise tonight some signs of life, some emotion behind his work. I’m loathe to use phrases like “he means it”, but at the very least he’s not rude enough to leave us with the impression that he’s just nipping by to sing some songs. “Lucky Man” and “Bittersweet Symphony” are bellowed out with a feeling that’s quite unmistakable, and it’s impossible not to be at least a bit moved. A short sharp lesson in how to do low-key emotive work sharply and effectively, then, which most of the bands tonight would do bloody well to note. Whatever he did tonight, at least it couldn’t be defined as aural wallpaper.

Headliners Supergrass, on the other hand, are becoming a worry for me. They seem to desperately want to be taken seriously as musicians all of a sudden. The first few songs are played perched on stools, and it all seems terribly “Later With Jools Holland”. A drum solo and bongo solo even works its way into the set, for which there can surely be no justifiable need.

It’s a shame, because whilst the casual listener might have dismissed Supergrass as being cheeky chirpy monkeys writing happy clappy jingles, their fans have always recognised that there’s more to their work than that. “Moving”, aired tonight, has a road-weariness that sounds aching and was played endlessly whilst I came towards the end of my travels last year. Then there’s the quiet longing of “Late in the Day”, also played to strong effect.

The problem with their performance tonight is that whilst “Road to Rouen” isn’t the substandard album everyone seems to believe it is (though it’s not exactly proved itself to be a glistening diamond in their catalogue, either) much of it is far too slickly produced arranged to be reproduced effectively live. Stripped of their embellishments, “Low C” and “St Petersburg” sound hollow, almost – holes in the tunes become apparent, and there’s something almost unnatural about hearing them in such a huge, impersonal venue. There’s also a laidback nature to their performances of even their most powerful tracks, which certainly wasn’t apparent ten years ago.

On the whole, though, they’re damn good and no amount of taking the foot off the accelerator slightly can dent the power of their best work. It’s just a shame they so desperately wish to be taken seriously. As the Go! Team would probably tell you, being serious doesn’t always mean being vital to anyone’s life.

(Amanda has told me that the above review of the night is inaccurate in that Athlete didn’t look like plumbers, because one of them had a very nice cashmere V-neck on. Therefore, this would make them more like accountants. However, the compliment about the cashmere top was the only good thing she could find to say about them).