Finally The Beta Band emerge from the blessed underground and into the minds of the masses.

The last stand at Glastonbury is a monumental challenge and one the band, resplendent in military camouflage, including helmets, are clearly planning to meet head-on. And with the current hiatus in their recording schedule, this is a precious opportunity to realise the widescreen vision that has been exploding too few minds for far too long.

Opening with a lumbering 'It's Not Too Beautiful', the persistent conundrum with the band is again faced. Can they recreate the genius they obviously have, in a live situation, when the pressure weighs over their heads like the executioner's blade? The answer is, unfortunately, almost.

'It's Not Too Beautiful', a twisted merging of John Williams Sci-Fi drama and slumbering acoustic swells, breaths into life, as vocalist Steve Mason grapples with his already shot voice and the probable demons in his mind.

It's followed by 'Inner Meet Me', a swollen valve of strumming waves, which is equally clumsy, but with 'Dry The Rain', the band truly elevate themselves alongside the cornocopia of musical brain-busters they aspire to.

As images of 'Pet Sounds', 'Loaded', 'Astral Weeks' and 'Abbey Road' flash by, the picture drops into shot. A frenzy of magnificent, fanfaring horns wash over, and from here on in, the brilliance of The Beta Band is sprayed into the Glastonbury sky-line.

'To You Alone' is a magnificent frenzy of drum overload and nursery-rhyme electronics, as Mason cries 'I'm a singing like a fool'. While such insecurities are delivered with affecting definition, Mason invigorates them , by recognising the power within his grasp and finally bating the spreadeagled crowd.

As the set draws to a climax, the band's lair becomes a no ticket free-for-all, and bastardised reworkings of tracks from 'The Three EPs' and 'The Beta Band' are fired-off to brilliant effect. The show culminates in all four members rythmically molesting two drum kits in a percussive sandstorm that puts their supposed peers, either limbeing-up, or winding-down, to shame.

Like a spinning top, The Beta Band have magic rounding their hands. Whether their sonic wonder drops into the mud or takes you and I beyond the limitations too many bands at Glastonbury 2000 have bowed down is really up to them. Whatever, Glastonbury has seen the future. And it's Beta.