The Wedding Present’s T-shirts used to say “All The Songs Sound The Same”, but Dave Gedge always booked support for his shows on the premise no one would want to listen to more than an hour and a half of anything that sounded like The Wedding Present – not even the most ardent C86er.

Thus The Pipettes were chosen as the penultimate act for his inaugural all-dayer at Concorde 2, At The Edge Of The Sea.

No band ever wants to be upstaged by their support, but given the audience demographic, The Pipettes could well have pulled off a coup. As it was, they huffed and puffed but Bananarama they ain’t – slick dance routines and matching polka-dot dresses, yes, irresistible pop songs, no.

Ironically named Welsh four-piece The Victorian English Gentlemans Club, with their yelping bubblegum bat girl blather, added a touch of youth early in the day, and Manchester’s Calvin Party, another group blessed with female guitarists – something of a theme for the day – rattled by like a spiky Smashing Pumpkins.

As the nation’s radio waves overflow with kids seeing how high they can chart using only a keyboard and a mouse, this event celebrated a time when all you needed was a guitar and an ear for melody – best embodied by local boys Villareal.

By the time The Wedding Present played Jet in a frenzied attack on the eardrums only three songs in, it was obvious we were in for something special. Give My Love To Kevin was screamed back at Gedge, and Brassneck and Bewitched from 1989’s Bizarro sounded as feisty as the day they were written.