FYAHMIX

Today, Carl Barat - who is handsome and bare-chested enough to please at least half the crowd - is a stranded figure, bereft of someone to crash into, left boxing his own shadow. In the case of The Libertines - who always appeared about to implode onstage - the crack-up has already happened, and what we're witnessing is the ugly, messy aftermath following the booting out of Pete Doherty, one of the two singers. And still they come: the Concrete Jungle stage is full of identical idea-free nu-punk muppets - I happen to catch The Ataris - who pray each day to the gods of commerce in the hope that next year it's them on the main stage.2003 is also the Year Of The Crack-Up. On the one hand, the urban Eighties girls in their Oxfam chic, and their skinny-tied male counterparts.

On the other, the suburban kiddies with their chainstore "punk" accessories and off-the-peg band hoodies.This, more than any other, is the year of Nu-Metal and Pop Punk (the bill is groaning with the likes of Sum 41, All American Rejects and Good Charlotte,

01/12 - 09/11 Procure Sara Evans Tickets performing in Blue Cross Arena, Boardwalk Hall Arena. Sara Evans is performing in Rochester, Atlantic City and Atlanta. Sara Evans tickets

07/11 - 08/11 Obtain Daniel Tosh Tickets playing in Mount Baker Theatre, Orpheum Theatre Omaha. Daniel Tosh is playing in Bellingham, Omaha and Sacramento. Daniel Tosh tickets

07/11 Bag Uncle Kracker Tickets staging in Meadowbrook U.S. Cellular Pavilion. Uncle Kracker is staging in Gilford. Uncle Kracker tickets

the appallingly wet Christian pop-punkers). Cruel fate has, you see, pitched my two favourite bands on earth - The Darkness and Ladytron - against each other, forcing me to miss the former's finale to dash over to the Radio 1 tent just in time to catch the latter playing the sublime "Seventeen".The sight of the crowd leaving Ladytron points at a seismic subcultural divide between The Town and The Country. They are, without question, the big unifying hit of the weekend - their T-shirts are everywhere, their words on everyone's lips, and a crowd even gathers when a Herbal Highs stall plays "Permission To Land" on its CD machine.Following The Darkness, Placebo have a tough job indeed (with weed, and breasts, and all the rest), but make a decent fist of it But I miss most of it. The Darkness have been bumped further and further up the bill as their runaway success escalates.

Last year, I saw The Datsuns throwing the same retro-rock shapes, right down to the piggyback guitar solo, as their less exotic East Anglian counterparts and cursing the music business for ignoring what was under their noses.This year, the tables are turned. Not that the real talents for the future are always represented on a bill which is inevitably affected by horsetrading between promoters and agents. For instance, the gonzo rock of The Datsuns feels good at half three with a pint in your hand and the sun in the sky, but you can't help judging the New Zealanders not by who they are, but by who they are not: namely, The Darkness. And what it does offer is a package tour precis of the state of rock, in which you can wander, running order in hand, from tent to tent to see which of the year's Bright New Hypes deserve the attention, which do not, and who might be worth keeping an eye on for the year ahead. There are no hippies and you can get home after the last band Yes, this is the Carling Weekend at Reading. This ain't Glastonbury.