Tobacco-chewing old timers might remember the country festivals of yesteryear, held at Wembley Arena. The London Arena is a much nicer venue, except you have to drag yourself to Docklands to find it.

No matter. Cowpokes from Pontefract and Cheam had braved the Easter showers, and were determined to soak up some of that ol' country ambience. However, watching the folks as they rooted and tooted around the merchandising stalls or indulged in lethargic line-dancing in the Arena's Glengall Room, I couldn't fathom why they were all dressed like fast-food attendants from Arkansas.

A 6.30pm start was early enough for me, by which time Jo Dee Messina was cranking it out onstage. A rumbustious redhead in skin-tight pink PVC trousers, Jo Dee fronted a band of journeyman rockers and kept the message simple. Jo Dee was enthusiastic but not great, though she was markedly superior to the awful Grand Ole Opry video clips shown on giant screens between artists. Luckily Ricky Skaggs arrived to rescue us.

Once ridiculed by the style gurus of the Old Grey Whistle Test for his unsuitable haircut, Skaggs is now clean shaven and committed to the cause of playing unadulterated bluegrass. Bluegrass doesn't mean high-speed banjo playing by retarded yokels in Deliverance, but rather a rich and varied palette of acoustic sounds, played on fiddle, guitar, banjo and mandolin. The only thing wrong with Ricky's set was its brevity.

If only the same could be said of Reba McEntire, whose headlining performance set new benchmarks in mawkishness and insincerity. There was the maudlin What Do You Say?, complete with accompanying video in which mom dies of cancer. There was The Greatest Man I Never Knew, a treacly tearjerker about her father. There were glutinous references to her son Shelby, and cloying odes to motherhood. It reminded you why country music remains so stubbornly American.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible