Doves are the latest band to emerge from the fertile indie/Britrock breeding ground of Manchester. As one-hit dance wonders Sub Sub, they were weaned on the post-Stone Roses dance scene of the early 1990s. Since then, they have returned to guitars and inevitably absorbed the influence of Oasis. The results can be heard on Doves' auspicious debut album Lost Souls, a collection of Oasis-like anthems and Mancunian psychedelica.

At Saturday's gig, however, the band themselves seemed like lost souls. Troubled by muddy sound from the first song, the instrumental Firesuite, the band's poise seemed to drain away with every song.

The eager crowd was expectant of a memorable event, but it never seemed to materialise, and the resulting atmosphere was without the spark the band is reputedly capable of creating. Throughout the gig, roadies scuttled about the stage fiddling with cables and drum stands, either over-zealous or under pressure, distracting the band and breaking any spell that might have been woven by the music.

They're a serious band, though, with a lot of depth and texture in their music; Saturday's show simply failed to put that across. With many of the songs relying heavily on backing tracks to bring out this depth, the performance suffered from an unwieldy rigidity. The constraint of having to follow the backing tracks made the band seem more workmanlike than inspired and, coupled with the impossible sound quality, divested the occasion of any personality or emotion, bar frustration.

Although the band themselves seemed a little dismayed at how ineffective their performance was, they nevertheless kept their heads down and towards the end of the set seemed to find their form. It was a little too late, though, to salvage the gig from its mediocre beginnings.

Doves are a band with the potential to be first past the post, but on Saturday they were also-rans.