A few hours earlier, up-and-coming Sona Fariq were scheduled to support horrible metal shouters Pitchshifter when fate dealt them a cruel blow. Pitchshifter's singer lost his voice (I can't imagine why) and the show was cancelled. Many artists would have welcomed a night off in the pub. Not Sona Fariq. They phoned round, pulled in fellow support the Workhorse Movement and put on their own gig.

Two Asian skinheads (drummer Wasif Hussein and bassist Abrar Hafiz), an Anglo-French guitarist (Dom Bouffard) and shaven-headed Moroccan singing sensation Michael Frankl, Sona Fariq deliver life in the modern UK with almost unrivalled spirit. Two songs in, Frankl wades into the crowd to deliver a song, jumping up and down within the m lée. Wild-eyed, he appears to take the sight of somebody unimpressed as a personal insult.

Bewilderingly lumped in with Nu Metal, which obviously irritates the singer (he talks of "minds numbed by testosterone"), Sona Fariq are metal-ish but multi-faceted. Their global palette mixes punk, glam, hip-hop and reggae and, while nowhere near fully developed, could emerge as a fusion of, say, the Stooges and Audioweb.

Frankl's stirring, vulnerable vocals are close to those of the late, great Malcolm Owen of the Ruts (he should hear their LP The Crack for lessons in how to use his voice.) Still, the Nu Metal kids seem happy. "Destroy!" shouts someone in a dog collar.

Frankl ends by asking half the audience on stage; then he sings the final number while getting a piggy back from somebody on the dance floor. He then instructs everyone off the stage (they obey) and stands, still singing, as people queue to shake his hand.