Anger Management or Corporate Management?  Eminem's 2003 UK live dates have been hyped by radio stations and music press alike, but there's something of a trades description concern about this one day "festival".  With gate opening times of 2pm and the first of only three acts not onstage until 6:15pm, one must question how much of this pre-performance wait is to accommodate the arrival of 65,000 ticket holders into the Milton Keynes Bowl or whether the real intention is to milk as much cash out of the crowd, who spend over four hours idly managing their "anger" by having bottle fights and getting heatstroke.  The promotion for this day had led hip hop and rap fans to believe they were in for a day of virtually continuous performances, from the likes of 50 Cent, Obie Trice, D-12, Xzibit and Cypress Hill.  Unfortunately, only the latter two of those acts appeared in their own right today - with Cypress Hill barely getting through four songs in their set that was riddled with technical problems (someone's head will roll, you can rest assured).  The other promised artists do all appear onstage, but only for brief cameos during Eminem's performance - a habit that most people had hoped he had left behind after his slightly disappointing Reading Festival dates in 2001.

Although rap can be dramatic and thought provoking at the best of times, Xzibit's support slot demonstrates the problem that live rap music can have.  As with Eminem's performance, the dynamics are somewhat diluted when blasted out across a massive crowd such as this, and the lack of the clean, compressed vocals present on the studio recordings often render any nuances in the lyrics lost on the listener.  Add to this waits of almost an hour between each act, and you have one very bored audience, waiting for something very special from the headline artist...

Now that US politicians have stopped blaming Interscope Records for the decline of the American "dream" and are more concerned with the activities of actual threats to society, Eminem seems to have been wholeheartedly embraced Hollywood - proof being an Oscar for 'Lose Yourself', the theme tune to the movie '8 Mile'.  While Eminem's recorded output continues to progress and mature - last year's album 'The Eminem Show' was his most musically interesting to date - his stage show has yet to develop from around the time of 'The Marshall Mathers Album'.  Although the talent of his collaborators tonight cannot be questioned, the fans have paid for their tickets under the impression that they would get a show-stopping performance from Eminem himself, not a compilation of tracks by D-12, Obie Trice and 50 Cent.  As with his earlier UK shows, songs are presented merely as two or three minute excerpts - meaning that he gets through a great deal of his own back catalogue, but the songs stop before there is a chance to get into them (how can he perform 'Stan' without the final, "suicide" verse?).  Thankfully, his finest song, 'Lose Yourself' is played in full along with 'Sing For The Moment' - that provokes the oldest of rock clichés: the aloft lighters (surprisingly spectacular in this number) - but essentially the show offers little more than his earlier festival appearances did.

Compared to the heavyweight rapping of D-12 and 50 Cent, Eminem's tinny voice cuts well through the backing tracks, but even then he is often relying on what sounds like the pre-recorded studio vocal tracks to beef up his lines (and let him catch his breath, understandably).  In between song banter is minimalistic, which gives the impression he'd rather be somewhere else - this is the chap who used to natter on happily about his pistol-whipping allegations in the past, don't forget.  Audience members present from the two o'clock gate time had to wait some nine hours before Eminem took to the stage - that his set only lasted an hour and thirty five minutes is quite insulting to his devoted fans.  That much of that set was songs by other artists billed as "support" added a hint of injury to this insult - not to mention the two hour wait to escape the National Bowl's labyrinth of car parks followed by the slowest of crawls back on to the M1.

Buy the records, listen to the developing styles on disc, but avoid the live hype in future unless you're lucky enough to get tickets to an exclusive club performance in an intimate venue.  No amount of video screens and fireworks can make up for a visual lack of imagination, especially when the number of acts performing over an entire day is spread so thinly.

Review: Andrew Morrison