A drunken day at Evolution in some marketing exercise known as NewcastleGateshead

Evolution is the north-east’s premier Bank Holiday Monday on the lash, and although this year’s line-up didn’t look particularly strong, it’s a chance to watch a load of bands for a ridiculously small sum of three English pounds (sadly the same price as the lager: Evolution is the only time of the year you go to the Pitcher and Piano to save money). And it was sunny this year as well. Top stuff.

Sunderland’s This Ain’t Vegas opened the proceedings at the Spillars Wharf stage, firmly stating their mackem credentials to a partisan crowd. It’s a great set from the Wearside indie-types, so often forgotten in the wake of fellow wheese-keys-are-these lads, the Futureheads.

The Whip are next. They play their best tune while I’m at the toilet, the rest of their set is, well, toilet. Instantly forgettable generic electro, with a frontman who is achingly desperate to be cool. His craic with the crowd is woeful, and he’s wearing a Batman t-shirt that was a cliché when Kele Okereke did it three years ago.

I’ve heard really good things and really bad things about Glasvegas, and I’m now siding with the latter. They come across as massively dull, and the Glaswegians’ name is reminiscent of the tendency of the inhabitants of various crap South Durham towns to add ‘Vegas’ to everything. I never want a night out in ‘Crook Vegas’, and I’d rather not have to listen to this lot again either.

Down on the other stage, I’m attracted to Hercules and the Love Machine by their links with my favourite transvestite New Yorker, Antony Hegarty (of Antony & the Johnsons fame). This project however lacks the immediate charm and beauty of his earlier work, as we’re presented with a poorly-timed cacophony of crap disco.

Duffy is a diminutive little minx, but fills the stage with a presence and a voice far beyond her tiny frame. It’s all a little bit Radio 2 though, although altogether less irritating than fellow soul-lite exponent, Adele.

Reverend and the Makers are bloody awful though. Poorly-informed leftist sentiment delivered by a raving tosspot who looks more likely to mug your gran then deliver any of the ‘peace and love’ he kept spouting on about.

I try to like Kate Nash, I really do, as by now the debacle that is backstage has made me decide to slum it with my mates who have assembled to watch her. She’s late, confuses stroppy little piano-smacking with charisma, and chucks glottal stops all over the shop. I get through one song before I can’t take any more of her mockney tedium and head for the bar.

All in all, Evolution remains a good day out. Next year we just need to hope for a better line-up. And more sun, please.