Art Brut are a weird kettle of fish, aren’t they? They’ve spent so long telling us that they’re the outsiders of the music industry, the band formed by fans of other bands, that they’ve become cemented in everyone’s minds as being just that. The problem is, they’re not anymore – the Astoria in London was easily sold out last night, as over a thousand fans jammed themselves into the sweaty, grimy establishment to pay their respects. They’re the outsiders who have crept under the floorboards and popped their heads into the charts by accident, the band that hundreds of thousands of fans around Europe seem to still think of as being “under the radar”.

Before Eddie Argos and his fellow oddballs took the stage, however, Ciccone propped up the bill as support, playing their last ever gig. Ciccone are distracting for two reasons – firstly, they sound uncannily similar to a band I used to be in seven years ago, except, in my humble and considered opinion, not as good. Thus I spend most of their set stroking my chin and thinking to myself “Ooh, we wouldn’t have gone about it that way”. The second distraction is that their bass player looks rather like Paul McCartney in a certain light, a passing resemblance that is only accentuated by his periodic face-pulling, gurning and nodding to other members of the band. Once these two things clear from my brain, however, I find myself enjoying their set. It’s all very jolly abrasive guitar pop, although the band at times seem as distracted as I am, perhaps by the people slowly milling into the venue, and strangely subdued for what should be an emotional last gig. Isn’t this the time you’re supposed to set off fireworks, strip to your underwear or throw things into the audience? Instead they shuffle off at the end with a half-hearted goodbye. Oh well. It was nice knowing them, and apparently most of them will be back in a new guise soon.

Vincent Vincent and the Villains are a band I was previously aware of and actually quite unimpressed by, but in a live environment they truly shine. Whilst their reference points are overwhelmingly obvious, taking in the hiccupping, moaning vocal styles and tremolo guitar noises of the fifties and the choppy, angular guitar work of the C86 movement, they do manage to create a noise that sounds quite uniquely their own (even if their final slow number does almost encroach into Chris Isaak territory). They even look the part, seeming like the type of lads you’d have seen outside the Ritz Cinema in the fifties, posing for black and white photographs and smoking roll-ups. Whatever you think of the music, and it most certainly won’t appeal to the majority of listeners, they definitely know how to strike a memorable pose.

Art Brut, unfortunately for everyone else on the bill, are probably one of the best live bands in Britain at the moment, and have forged a career out of being the playground idiots of the music industry. Eddie Argos lacks grace and is a very awkward looking chap indeed, but as opposed to disguising this instead accentuates his shortcomings, seeming like some physical cross between Jarvis Cocker, Tiny Tim and Freddie Garrety in his onstage behaviour – swirling the mic around, finger-pointing into the audience and dancing in a cumbersome manner.

All this would count for little by itself apart from novelty if the band hadn’t grown from their slightly ramshackle, indier-than-thou roots into a very convincing proposition. Behind the superb and witty lyrical observations (Take “I’ve nothing for my friends but envy and hatred/ how many girls have they seen naked?” for starters) also lies some very sharp and jagged yet powerful pop melodies. Where the first album “Bang Bang Rock and Roll” seemed to owe a debt to the art-punk outfits of yore, the next one seems to have its shoes rooted more firmly in base-camp Britpop, which will either prove to be their making or undoing. Judging by the sheer volume of people in the audience, I’d say it’s looking more like the former at the moment. “Pump up the Volume” in particular will probably end up becoming an indie disco anthem before the year’s out.

Rather touchingly, Eddie Argos does a loud roll-call of forgotten and brilliant flop bands at the end of his set, roaring out “David Devant and His Spirit Wife! Top of the Pops! Animals That Swim! Top of the Pops!” thereby reminding the large audience of their influences and also who he thinks their peers are. It marks them out, once again, as knowingly different – Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and Nirvana do not even warrant mentions. As brilliant as this moment is (and I’m the only person who seems to cheer for Animals That Swim) it does remind me of a thought I’ve had before – if Art Brut had been around between 1994 – 1996, would I actually have bought any of their records or cared much? If they’d been around in a period where lyrical sharpness was expected, and was not the exception to the general rule, and where fantastic albums by The Tindersticks, The Divine Comedy, Pulp, Radiohead, Scott Walker, Jack, The Fall, Animals That Swim, and Earl Brutus had crash-landed on to the shelves of record stores amongst many others, would I actually have bothered to shell out cash for them? It’s difficult to say, but something causes me to doubt it. The great thing about them at the moment is that their lack of posturing po-facedness and their willingness to go out on a lyrical limb make them stand out, and they plug a gaping hole in the present lazy, identikit, fashion-conscious “alternative” scene. If they’re going to mean anything to anyone at all in four years time and not become the next Frank and Walters*, however, I’d say there’s still some work to be done. For the time being, they’ll do as they are, and at least they leave you with a big soppy grin on your chops and a tune spinning round on repeat cycle in your head.

(*That’s not such a terrible or inaccurate comment, by the way – if I was going to be insulting, I’d have said Kingmaker, who in turn have much more in common with Razorlight).