This show had to be moved from a smaller venue to accommodate everyone who wanted to bask in Fu Manchu's grubby stoner-rock, which suggests the California quartet's moment has come.

If success can be measured by the number of flailing legs protruding from the scrum in front of the stage, the gig should have been held at Wembley Arena. But there is an impression, nonetheless, that Fu Manchu have missed their chance.

Their music can aptly be called timeless, in the sense that they've been whipping out the same riffs for the last eight years, and it's easy to picture amiable singer/guitarist Scott Hill keeping it going into his dotage.

No doubt there will always be an audience, too, because this music - bass-driven sludge that owes its existence to Black Sabbath - has been around in some form for decades.

But Fu Manchu somehow failed to benefit from its nanosecond of coolness two years ago, when the likes of Queens of the Stone Age threatened to be the next big thing. Thus it's hard to see them expanding their fanbase much beyond the headbangers who already turn out for them.

Hill himself seemed gobsmacked that the Astoria was nearly full. Every number was punctuated with a self-effacing "I want to thank you for coming out", as if the novelty of the larger stage and streams of stagedivers had yet to wear off.

He and his anonymous-looking fellow Fus made the most of it, anyway, filling the air with grinding extracts from the current album, California Crossing.

Playing in front of a backdrop depicting the sun setting over the Pacific - the ultimate stoner daydream, presumably - they managed to make each ponderous anthem unexpectedly compelling.

The key was Hill and Bob Balch's distorted guitar duels, as primitively rousing as a fight between elephants. Coupled with improbably jaunty harmonies evocative of Adam & The Ants, the package was close to irresistible.

Downtown in Dogtown, the trouble-in-paradise rocker California Crossing and a monstrously rumbling Godzilla were highlights.

Wisely, each song was kept concise save for a headspinning finale that went on forever - though it wasn't long enough for one 16-year-old, who shouted as the band exited, "It's only 9:30! What the fuck are they on about?"