When Stereophonics emerged from the Welsh valleys on a Britpop high, they were hailed in some quarters as a marriage of the barbed poetics of the Manic Street Preachers and the blue-collar authenticity of Bruce Springsteen. A decade on, it's lamentable how badly they have failed to deliver on this early promise.

They remain bafflingly popular, with tonight the first of two sold-out nights at the cavernous Ally Pally. However, a succession of clunky albums of mildly epic pub-rock had seen the trio written off as journeymen until this summer's incendiary no 1 single, Dakota, partly salvaged their reputation. Tonight's show is a familiarly prosaic affair. Stereophonics' default mode remains gritty, lumpy meat-and-potatoes hard rock lacking in flair, alchemy and imagination.

Diminutive singer/guitarist Kelly Jones diligently ladles elbow grease over their robust indie-blues anthems, but there are few thrills. Traffic and Caravan Holiday are as dreary as their titles, and recent single Devil could only be more pedestrian if it were flanked by Belisha beacons.

Stereophonics wear their lack of airs and graces like a badge of merit, a debatable decision given that pop is all about airs and graces. The Bartender and the Thief and Just Watching retain a certain rugged poetry, but eventually the monotony of Jones's chugging barroom-blues riffs simply wears you down.

They close with the sheer propulsion and adrenalin rush of Dakota, but the track's vitality merely serves to emphasise the poverty of what has gone before. On a hugely disappointing night, it is simply too little, too late.