As the battle of the four-letter bands, it was really no contest. David Sinclair writes. With their pseudo-heavy metal guitar riffs, lumpy rhythms and football terrace choruses, Blur simply trampled all obstacles in sight.

From the moment they launched into the jackbooted stomp "Sunday Sunday" there was pandemonium among the densely-packed crowd which threw itself towards a stage decorated with five giant lampshades to give an incongruous vision of mock-Fifties kitsch. And the assault rarely faltered. As an unbashed celebration of southern English yob culture it was unassailable.

Pulp, who played before Blur, did not excite such a Pavlovian response. Yet their set was all the more impressive for its lack of rabble-rousing tactics. They exerted a fragile charm that was both amusing and mysterious.

Much of their appeal resided in the idiosyncratic personality of singer Jarvis Cocker, whose performance imbued the show with a sense of theatre. Laced with his droll, northern wit, songs such as "His 'N' Hers", "The Common People" and a romping finale of "Babies" illuminated a sleazy strand of English romanticism. So victory to Pulp on points, despite Blur's knock-out punch at the end.