Pop: Give it a little more fizz, lads

KULA SHAKER 100 CLUB LONDON

IF ONLY the excesses for which Kula Shaker have had their career derailed were even half-true. They've been called misogynists, even Nazi- obsessed, since the singer/lyricist Crispian Mills opened his mouth once too often about his beloved, romanticised India, ill-advisedly offering to reclaim the swastika - and other crimes. But before that, he'd talked of spiritual revolution, of onrushing millennial crisis. In the patchouli aristocracy tones appropriate to Hayley Mills's son, he seemed really to want to change the world. That he hasn't, and that the promise of blistering early singles such as "Hey Dude" has been broken too, is truly sad. Kula Shaker are so much less than they should be.

The evidence is in every other lyric in this week of pre-tour shows at the tiny 100 Club, one-time home to hippies. Mills offers wispy prevarications, useless incitements: "Something's on my mind, but I don't want to talk about it" is typical of the patchy new album Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts. Perhaps it indicates a wavering of the revolutionary party line under media pressure. At any rate, in a spiritually apathetic age it's hardly a call to arms. And there's less excuse for the band's musical refusal to progress. Too often, these dates seem not a winningly democratic gesture by a million-selling rock act, but their appropriate level, as reincarnations of a band second on the bill to the Small Faces, circa 1968.

There's no excitement, no sense of sweaty connection, as you'd get with bands with true devotees in this setting. Instead, Mills leads his men to polite interest, with his own lack of charisma, as he lets his blond hair flop over his face, all too apparent. He speaks in an accent somewhere between Suggs and some ironic Mr. Showbiz, even when he's saying things he must believe: that 108 "is the secret number of love". Sometimes he holds his arms out, as if offering wisdom, or an embrace. But mostly, he's one of the boys. His band emphasise organ riffs, proving they're mods at heart. "Sound of Drums" adds laser blasts, updating their sound to 1976, but the crowd's chatter over "Mystical Machine Guns" Indian chords shows that variety won't be encouraged.

And yet, there are regular reminders why we're still here at all, why Kula Shaker haven't already been dumped in the post-Britpop bargain bin. As the guitars chop into "Hey Dude" and "Hush", memories of their early magic creep back. When the overture to a new age, the song "Hosannah", offers its tentative message over a gentle strum, escalating to an epic chorus, you can almost believe in them anew. But the crowd is already evaporating. No one wants an encore, not today.

Nick Hasted