Kasabian, Academy, Glasgow

"The serpent's going to rise from the sea," Kasabian singer Tom Meighan has commented on the emergence of his band of self-mythologising Britrock rebels, "and scare all the pirates away".

"The serpent's going to rise from the sea," Kasabian singer Tom Meighan has commented on the emergence of his band of self-mythologising Britrock rebels, "and scare all the pirates away".

Such obtuse spin-mongering is nothing new, having emerged from the lips of laddish icons like Ian Brown and Liam Gallagher for the best part of a decade, but at least their words rung with the straight-talking honesty of the truly committed. If Brown or Gallagher had never made it in music, the feeling is they would still be spouting such street corner wisdom in their local pub at closing time. Despite his oft-repeated contentions that British music needs a band like Kasabian, however, it's hard not to believe that Meighan and his cohorts are just repeating such rhetoric because they know it will get them noticed.

Crucially, easy as it is for those who have seen it many times before to snipe, the surge of delight which an 18-year-old music fan feels when they see a band which is bigger, louder and more cocksure than any they have heard before won't wait for just the right act.

To this youthful,excitable contingent Kasabian are, for better or worse, the band of their time. So it's a wild show. Ten minutes in, the floor is sticky with a film of beer, those throwing their pint beakers and spilling others drinks as they dance unsteadily with arms aloft, too lost in sense-dulled merriment to care. While most of the female fans in the crowd keep a more reserved distance, their appreciation for the grubbily handsome quintet is equally apparent.

The music is dark and testosterone-fuelled by turns, with three guitars and a keyboard engaging in a primal battle of wills with Meighan's sneering, impudent vocal on songs like "Processed Beats" and "Test Transmission".

Yet their attitude came back to haunt them here. Around three quarters of the way through the main set, one of the alcoholic missiles criss-crossing the crowd found its way on stage, appearing to strike guitarist Sergio Pizzorno . Kasabian beat a hasty retreat, only for a crew member to reappear five minutes later and announce that Pizzorno was in hospital and the gig was over.

It was an ugly end to the evening. The event was unwanted physical proof of the fine line between self-belief and self-delusion. If you're going to play the rabble-rouser then the rabble will unfortunately be roused from time to time.