Until now, they were a one-man band with Ian Broudie playing all the instruments. On Thursday at the Borderline the Lightning Seeds sprouted and blossomed into a five-piece rock band.Quite a difference. Critics have popped tracks like 'Marvellous' and 'Lucky You' into the marquee-sized folder marked 'perfect pop', but some songs on the new album, Jollification (Sony), suffer from sterile production, with Broudie's vapid sub-Neil Tennant voice over a disco backing.But add a bit of mean slide-guitar and energetic bass and drums and it sounds fantastic Let's hope Broudie keeps his sidekicks. With his brains and their brawn the Seeds are blooming marvellous.Traffic: Manchester Apollo, 061-273 3775, tonight; B'ham Symphony Hall, 021-782 8282, Mon; Newcastle City Hall, 091-261 2606, Wed; Sheffield City Hall, 0742 73525, Fri; and touring..

IN BILL BRYDEN's The Big Picnic, civic pageantry comes indoors. And if that statement arouses more interest in the process than the content, then it reflects my response to the show. Four years ago Bryden and his team first moved into the huge Harland & Wolff engine shed in Govan to stage The Ship, a theatrical epitaph for the Clyde's ship-building industry. The new piece, on an even grander scale, is a theatrical war memorial for the City of Glasgow Battalion which perished in Flanders. In both cases, an epic tribute to the city's past has won massive support from the new Glasgow. One step inside that transformed shed - a venue two-thirds the size of a football pitch, packed to the rafters - and you breathe an atmosphere of all-or-nothing commitment beyond anything to be experienced in the English theatre. As a mass spectacle, its heart and soul are in the staging.