Smash Hits Poll Winners Tour, MEN Arena

MORE than 10,000 people had a glimpse of the future.

But my, my, my, it was so depressingly bleak.

Somewhere along the line, pop has been hijacked and in the process it has lost much, if not all, of its sparkle.

The tour is used to showcase the best of the nation's up-and-coming talent while highlighting the cream of the big hitters.

So we had newcomers Liberty, Allstars, 3SL, Blessed and Warren Stacey rubbing shoulders with Westlife, Geri Halliwell, Samantha Mumba, Blue and A1.

In short, the fledgling identikit groups were hanging out with the more established ones -- each serving a diet of hi-tempo pop that was loved by the screaming audience but brought nothing new or inspiring.

Some of them were admittedly excellent performers. Geri opened the show incredibly well with Scream If You Wanna Go Faster and Westlife closed it equally admirably with When You're Looking Like That.

Samantha Mumba's brand of pop was also delivered with style, thought and passion. Liberty, too, were mightily impressive.

Yet if 3SL (three brothers whose sister is Lisa from Steps) and Blessed make it big then we'd better call for the undertaker because pop is dead.

This was a night lacking in inspiration with nearly every group producing a cover version. We had It's Raining Men, Uptown Girl, Seasons in the Sun, I Think I Love You and Take On Me to name a few.

But the audience loved it, which of course is what counts and admittedly many of the covers are new to people under the age of 12.

Yet what struck me more than ever was the sheer commercialisation of the tour where programmes cost £8 and half-a-pint of lager set you back £3.

It appears money is everything to an industry which seems to increasingly pin its hopes on TV talent shows, picking up decent singers but subjecting them to songs which on their merit are merely average but together with a beautiful face and heaps of publicity become smash hits.

All of this is nothing new. But never have I seen it more in evidence than last night. And for a self-confessed fan of pop, it was depressingly sad to see. David Crookes