As any zoologist knows, monkeys should not be removed from their natural habitat. However, after becoming too popular for their favourite intimate venues, two open-air mega-gigs at Old Trafford are Arctic Monkeys' way of avoiding the dreaded trudge around arenas. However, the precise difference is a very moot point. Dark clouds hover overhead; moving three feet without bumping into someone should be rewarded with some sort of medal; and the available fast food would be rejected in any decent ape-house.

Still, Amy Winehouse has other travails. Barely a week after she was reported to have forgotten her own songs and spat at fans at the Eden Project, her dead-eyed emotionless stare suggests a woman now so haunted by something that she has actually given up blinking. Still, while the curiously early slot may give her time to nip to the pub, her unscathed soul vocals should prompt medical investigations into how anyone can look this miserable while sounding so fantastic.

Winehouse - and tuneful 60s-heads the Coral - should probably have been further up the bill. Instead, Supergrass's appearance prompts mutterings like: "I thought they were dead."

Still, with many of their Britpop peers reforming, their sudden re-emergence is timely and well received. With Gaz Coombes sporting a white titfer, their greatest hits segue gloriously into each other, even though Sun Hits the Sky can not quite muster an upturn in the weather.

In the Britpop era, Oasis overreached themselves by playing Knebworth and subsequently burst their bubble, but there are no such problems for Arctic Monkeys. As thousands surge towards the stage for Britain's hottest band, Fluorescent Adolescent demonstrate what a stadium pop experience should sound like.

There are no cheesy crowd-pleasing routines or cries to "make some noise", just great songs played 5mph faster than normal, which gives a sense of roller-coasting excitement. Indeed, the Monkeys are so fired up that when the PA blows they actually play on in near-silence for a good two minutes before realising that the sound is down. The drama becomes as much a part of the show, with deranged singsongs and the eerie symmetry of playing When the Sun Goes Down as darkness falls.

Otherwise, they just surge the wave of those two remarkable albums and a bond with their audience as ordinary boys made very good indeed.