Jimmy Eat World, The Automatic: Earls Court, London

April 29th

After losing AFI in the Sunday line up for the Give It A Name indoor festival, the organisers opted for The Automatic to replace them and open for Jimmy Eat World. Yes, that's right, Jimmy Eat World - the band of sensitive, civilised gents and modern-day pioneers of emo as we know it. Then there's The Automatic, a collection of children who escaped asbos (and a career in children's TV) for a life on the road, singing songs about monsters and the bloke they buy sandwhiches from.

The Jimmy Eat World fans aren't impressed. Waiting to rock and dance and cry to the classic emo anthems from breakthrough album Bleed American, they hurl shoes, water and green balls at the sweaty twat whose sole role in The Automatic is to say 'Awwwwwwwwwwww!, eeeeeeerreeeeeeeeeeek!' everytime a chorus approaches. To make matters worse, they cover Talking Heads before saying 'we're going to educate you'. All the crowd wants is someone to eradicate The Automatic.

Jimmy Eat World play a greatest hits heavy 50 minutes, while slotting in the odd newie like Butch Vig produced Big Casino which sees a retreat to big, pop anthems after the political intellectualising and bed-wetting of 2004's Futures. They're great, obviously and pause only to hand out water or congratulate the sound engineer. Relentless power pop is sandwhiched between the heartbreak ballads and sneering, angsty and brooding punk explosions. Jimmy Eat World might be polite and look about as rock as the dude from your local Blockbusters, but you can't argue with their pop genius. The Middle, Sweetness and Bleed American rock Earls Court. As the set comes to an end, The Automatic appear on stage again - a confused Jimmy Eat World realise they're the support band and sarcastically point at the one-hit-wonders desperately trying to pilfer some emo credentials before they get tossed by their label....