21.15, Carling Stage

I said it of their Glastonbury appearance and I’ll say it again: SPARTA are in desperate need of a break. Although their performance here is at least several notches higher than on the last two occasions I’ve seen them (perhaps the result of knowing that they’ve very nearly reached the end), in between songs Jim Ward sounds tired and emotionally drained. They’re also in desperate need of new material – as good as debut LP Wiretap Scars is, it’s now underpinned a year and half of gigs, including UK tours with Hundred Reasons and Queens Of The Stone Age. The setlist too is terribly jaded – even though ‘Cut Your Ribbon’ and ‘Air’ are played with a controlled and carefully channelled aggression, they can’t really function as the desired end-of-set knockout punch when you already know long beforehand exactly what’s coming.