T in the Park: Radio 1 Evening Session Stage (10/7/99)
Maybe not the ideal band to launch a festival at lunchtime, Witness's brand of sour comedown music, though better suited to a collective hangover in a smelly student bedsit at 4am when the pills and the booze have run out, nevertheless strikes a bit of a chord with the festival early birds.
Singer Gerard Starkie, though he'd dearly love to be an enigma, just looks a bit embarrassed and unengaging, smoking and wandering around like a man waiting for a lift when he's not actually singing.
The songs - as you'll probably know from hearing their mildly over-hyped debut album - are musical methadone for chronic Verve junkies with a few sparks of soaring soul on 'Quarantine' and a few hypnotic crescendos. Pubrock angst, sure, and made for the bargain bin of history, but OK. Terribly, terribly OK.
Tommy Udo (NME)