Two greats for the price of one

Whatever possessed David Bowie, curator of this year's Meltdown festival at the South Bank Centre, to put pop malcontent Luke Haines and New York punk heroes Television on the same bill is anybody's guess. They're not just from different eras, they're from different planets. For all that they have in common, he might just as well have paired up Celine Dion and Philip Glass.

Still, Haines isn't easily deterred. Immaculately turned out in a crisp, white suit, he's his usual malevolent self. As the erstwhile Auteurs frontman, and the brains behind Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder, Haines's career has always been powered by his near-pathological ill-temper. This is a man who specialises in the kind of bleak and bilious lyrics not heard since Morrissey was run out of town.

Music journalists, young British artists and Prince William have all received a lashing in recent years. Last year – at a time when he was releasing two solo albums, one of them a soundtrack to the film of Christie Malry's Own Double Entry – he called for a pop strike, entreating consumers to avoid record shops, and musicians to lay down their instruments, in order to rid the charts of pop dross. No one took any notice, but they were admirable sentiments.

Tonight, he's by turns whingey and funny. A sarcastic remark about Britpop falls flat, while another about terrorism elicits nervous laughter. One track, from his other solo album of last year, The Oliver Twist Manifesto, plots the violent death of the artist Sarah Lucas; another recalls a time "when I was possessed by Satan, about a month ago". Haines may be his own worst enemy; his disdain of pop makes you wonder why he doesn't simply get a different job. But at least his songs are brilliant.

Television's place in rock'n'roll history may be assured, but what of them now? These ex-punk icons and CBGB stalwarts certainly look pretty tame, with their rolled-up shirt-sleeves and receding hairlines. Musically, though, they are anything but, punching out the kind of cerebral rock sounds that put today's pretenders, such as the Strokes and their ilk, in their small and insignificant place. Such is the adulation surrounding them tonight that even a bout of guitar-tuning gets a cheer.

Famed for their fall-outs during the Seventies, TV's existence was sadly brief. After just two albums, 1977's much-acclaimed debut Marquee Moon and its less successful follow-up, Adventure, the band broke up. A reunion in the early Nineties, which yielded an eponymous album, was similarly short-lived.

Now they're together for a few gigs, though for how long nobody knows. Their singer and guitarist Tom Verlaine, pale and gaunt-looking, says little, preferring to get on with the job in hand. His principal sparring partner, Richard Lloyd, whose tight riffs were always the perfect foil to Verlaine's jazz stylings, remains at a safe distance. Once the music starts, though, the politics fade from view. From the pulsating brilliance of "Little Johnny Jewel" to the adrenaline rush of "See No Evil", they are as beguiling as ever. "Marquee Moon", with its rippling, free-form jazz-style wig-out, is quite exceptional. This was a rare appearance from a rarely talented band – we should treasure them while we can.

David Bowie's Meltdown continues at the South Bank Centre, London SE1 (020-7960 4242) to 29 June