The annual NME-sponsored package tour is intended to give exposure to young rock'n'roll talent. Arctic Monkeys, who sold well over a quarter of a million copies of their debut album last week, need further exposure like a homeless person on Christmas Eve. They might as well be headlining (they were apparently happy to defer to Maximo Park): a chasm separates them from the three other bands sweating and straining on the same bill.

Surely no one could kid themselves that, Arctic Monkeys aside, this represents the best that rock'n'roll has to offer in 2006. Headliners Maximo Park, who play to a noticeably thinned-out crowd, are a third-rate Britpop hangover, now inexplicably successful in a mid-range way. To make up for not being Arctic Monkeys, they have multi-coloured squares flashing behind their nerdish posturing. It's not enough.

New York three-piece We Are Scientists would seem, like, totally edgy were they appearing as the bar band on The OC. Like the Killers minus the echo of the Psychedelic Furs, and plus a dose of U2, they're not entirely unpleasant in the way that something you realise you're not paying attention to can be. Then you hear the line, "My body, your body, I won't tell anybody", and you wince.

Openers Mystery Jets are, at least, unique. They are the band who bring their dad on: singer Blaine Harrison's silver-haired, 55-year-old father Henry who sings and plays a variety of instruments. It makes up for the deficiencies of their over-egged XTC-ish pop. But, unlike We Are Scientists and Maximo Park, they make trying too hard seem like a virtue of sorts.

However, the night belongs to Arctic Monkeys. The crowd leap to their feet as they come on, and sing along with every word of I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor and When the Sun Goes Down - played first because the band know the other songs are just as good. They do very little but somehow they're riveting. They make the most benighted format - white boys with guitars - seem like the most exciting thing in the world.

· At Rock City, Nottingham (0115 958 8484), tomorrow, then touring.