One thing you've got to say about the Stereophonics is they're good at what they do. Critics can scoff, but when you fill Earls Court for two nights running these things are easily shrugged off. At the moment - in the absence of Oasis - they're pretty much the people's band. As Kelly Jones said in today's Sun: "We're not going to try and do something arty and clever. We're going to go out and give a rock'n'roll show and give people a good time."
And rock is what they do. From the high octane riffage of 'Vegas Two Times', the 'Phonics play head-down legs-apart twoguitarsbassndrums rock'n'roll with all the trimmings and axe hero poses. Flares, sideburns and cowboy boots are de rigueur in their worldview that begins and ends around 1973. The cover of 'Handbags and Gladrags' and the previous night's guest appearance from Ronnie Wood could hardly hammer the point home any further: the Stereophonics are a bit partial to a bit of Faces-style 'last gang in town' bonhomie.
This probably makes them as relevant as, say, The Libertines - who's own worldview is either stuck in 1978 or 1878 - but it does beg one question: why do we still cling to these hallowed clichés of rock'n'roll?
Their last album, 'You Gotta Go There To Come Back', finally pinned their back-to-the-future sense of direction to the mast. The Welsh upstarts who gatecrashed the Camdencentric love-in of Britpop with their gritty tales of small town life (all set to tunes the milkman could hum) had gone ROCK. Most of the album sounded like the sort of lads/blues boogie last heard when John Peel whipped out his mandolin on TOTP for 'Maggie May'. Even their logo looks pre-decimal.
Yet, what's most interesting tonight is witnessing the interaction between band and crowd and, more pertinently, the difference between them. For, while Kelly & Co. have sold their souls at the altar of real rock, their audience doesn't seemed to have followed.
Its not that they don't cheer the new songs. It's just they don't connect half as much as 'Have A Nice Day', 'Local Boy In The Photograph' or 'Just Looking'. And sartorially the gulf is enormous. While the band dress like Spooky Tooth the crowd look so...normal. A typical arena crowd. A prime-time Faces gig would be a sea of feathercuts but here is all jeans and trainers. The golden age that Kelly Jones believes in just doesn't exist any more.
Wherein lies the rub. Like so many British bands, in plundering the glories of the past the Stereophonics risk being stuck in a timewarp that forever glorifies The Beatles, the Stones and 1966. Their idea of musical progress - just like the Gallagher brothers' - is to utilise some backward guitars. It's the same step that Lennon and McCartney made in 1966.
You wouldn't expect the same of RnB and Hip Hop so why does planet rock have to be so conservative? Kelly might not want to be "arty and clever" - and those words could easily have come from the mouth of Simon Cowell - but since when have ambition and imagination become dirty words? The Beatles would have remained a skiffle band if they'd thought the same.
The Stereophonics certainly show people a good time - but they're in danger of becoming irrelevant. Which is one small step shy of extinction.
