Franz Ferdinand... a new fab four take Brixton

A good band will grab a gig by the throat and take you on a trip through their world, to such an extent that you forget other music. It happened to me recently with Pearl Jam. Last year, James at Brixton for a brief moment seemed like the only band the world actually needed.

On Saturday Franz Ferdinand's energy, commitment, enthusiasm, musicality and technical execution more than lived up to my fairly high expectations. As you always hope, they are better live than on record. Where their recorded output has an easy, radio-friendly pop balance, live they push it heavier and faster; the sound is more full, louder, sexier.

Their oeuvre has the clear embarkation point of The Kinks, and now looking back I wonder if their career trajectory might not follow on similar lines to the likewise influenced Blur - one hopes they emulate Blur's history of exploration and periodic bouts of reinvention.

But elsewhere in the mix I found an even older rock 'n roll - FF can also do a remarkably authentic r'n'b boogie, evoking the more traditional end of 60's white boy blues from the Doors, Led Zep or Hendrix - simple, hell for leather, bluesrock holler-outs.

It doesn't end there though. They proceed to take in disco (well, of the Bowie - Bolan glam rock genus), and 80's art rock (a la Talking Heads, Roxy Music)... before an epic finale in (and for my money their best track to date) the suped-up, acid techno funk of 'Lucid Dreams'... which made me rush home and put on Orbital 2 (this being a very good thing, see).

As ever, the bass player is the tragically underrated star of the music if not the show, the bedrock that makes the rest of it possible. People, I can only assume, always think it's the drummer that provides the momentum in a rock band, but in fact drums are just the rhythmic highlight - the flashy accessories on the engine that is actually the bass. Make no mistake, it takes tremendous discipline, hard work, and precision to lay out a pulse which propels the band rather than drags it back. and when it's done well, when a tight band puts down a solid groove in any modern genre, it's exhilarating. Indeed I had a sudden vision of what it must have been like experiencing the Beatles, or Elvis, or later say, the Clash or Madness... when the kids got so overexcited they'd riot.

In the context of the live show, the latest album Tonight is accomplished and accessible, a natural development from earlier work... but perhaps the limit of their current soundscape.

The only slight criticism, if i had to make one, - their visuals didn't quite live up to the imagined potential. on the other hand the gig was an absolute bargain at £23.50, coming as it did with the unexpected pop-tastic delight that was Music Go Music, and the uncannily spot-on dj'ing over two sets from Rob Da Bank.