Rufus Wainwright believes this to be "the most pop album" he's ever made, and he's probably right, so long as you're thinking 1970s pop.

"Do you remember the first time?" Jarvis Cocker pleads on Pulp's opening number? I do. As a gob-smacked audience member witness-ing a libidinous Cocker perform "Underwear" – one of Pulp's best live numbers and sensational tonight – on TV's The White Room in 1995, on a bill shared with Portishead. Forget the dismal Blur vs Oasis debate, the two P-bands were the most spine-tingling acts to emerge from these shores since The Smiths. If Portishead evoked J D Ballard's dystopian science-fiction, then Pulp were more reminiscent of Alan Sillitoe's kitchen-sink dramas, particularly Tom Courtenay's lanky rebellious teen in The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner. Only with added smut, oodles of added smut.

The legendary twang guitarist's first album in 24 years mercifully contains none of the gimmicks used by his 1980s collaborators Art of Noise, just a timeless surf sound from producer, co-writer and obvious fan Richard Hawley.

Brighton's answer to the South by South-West festival has, it appears, already outgrown its roots. Five years ago it was about showcasing new bands, though now, in summer festival style, it's wilfully drawing bigger crowds with established names. Hence, punters find themselves in the quandary of whether to follow the A&R trail and take a chance on the untried acts, or face the long and inordinately slow-moving queues in order to see the stars.

Richard Hawley is the Roy Orbison of the Tens. With his dour demeanour, large-frame spectacles, Bill Haley-standard quiff (grease, I think, not gel) and his velvet-collared jacket, Hawley is a real oddity, an entertainer who has made it his business to walk the walk of the singular and the aloof. He is anachronistic to a T.

Submarine is the directorial debut of Richard Ayoade (better known as Moss from The IT Crowd), a gentle comedy of delusional adolescence set in South Wales at some indeterminate point in the late 20th century.

"You can shout abuse if you want," offers Cherry Ghost's Simon Aldred. "It's kind of what we're used to." Predictably, his 2008 Ivor Novello Best Contemporary Song award has not gone to the head of a man who looks ready to flinch reflectively from praise. The self-deprecation keeps coming: on learning that the audience for this intimate showcase gig are competition-winners, he sympathises: "And we're the prize!"

His 1959 debut might have been called Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel, but the legendary Duane Eddy hadn't graced a British stage since a tour with the Everly Brothers in 1991. All dressed in black, including an immovable Stetson, and playing his beautiful Gretsch signature guitar, Eddy rolled back the years from the off with "Detour" and his debut hit, "Moovin'N'Groovin". Backed by Richard Hawley's excellent band and a very adept saxophone player, he re-created his run of instrumental hits that are so evocative of the late Fifties and early Sixties. Eddy and his co-writer and producer, the late Lee Hazlewood, had a way with a title – cue "Cannonball" and the even snappier "Yep!" and "Shazam!" – and moved the guitar on from Les Paul's clean sound to a meaner, leaner rock'n'roll style.

With support from Jack White and Bryan Ferry, Smoke Fairies are no ordinary folk-oriented outfit. Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies met as part of a school choir in rural Sussex, gaining further inspiration from their parents' Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young records and a desire to get the hell out of Chichester.

Gentle melancholia as tied to its place of origin (Manchester) as Richard Hawley's is to Sheffield.

A trio of guitar greats - Jimmy Page, Duane Eddy and Richard Thompson - were honoured tonight for their inspirational contribution at a major music awards event.