Travis's Fran Healy: definitely not Morrissey.
Photograph: Getty
Imogen Tilden, arts editor
What's the opposite of Morrissey? Rachel Stevens? Right Said Fred? Or perhaps Travis? The Scottish rockers certainly were far from an obvious replacement for his Moz-ness, who pulled out of a headline spot at this weekend's Isle of Wight festival. (Reportedly because his record company agreed to his appearing without his permission, although there's a slightly different version of events on Morrissey's website.)
I spotted one festival-goer sporting a "Where's Morrissey?" t-shirt, but the rest of the chilled out Isle of Wight crowd seemed more than happy with Travis. And, much as it pains me to say this, they put on a very good show, warming even my steely heart, even if I was taken aback to discover that Sing and Turn weren't actually the same song.
After a couple of false starts to One in a Million, frontman Fran Healy then forgot the words for the second verse. "The whole song's gone out my head! What's going wrong?" he asked, half amused, half appalled. Luckily a bloke in the front row could help out, so Healy clambered down off the stage to have a quick chat and refresher course in his own lyrics.
But the encore was the fun bit. Healy does a crap Morrissey impression, but their version of Every Day is Like Sunday, with extra guitars, went down a storm.
Caroline Sullivan reviews Friday and Saturday's highlights here .
