Sticky Mike’s got a great Frog Bar and on Sunday night it became a hotbed of ecstasy as Long Beach, California’s exuberant hip-hop exports Ugly Duckling performed the final UK gig of their current tour.

Following a gleefully expressive and brilliant turn from nine-strong ska/funk/metaphysics outfit the Almighty Planets, Ugly Duckling’s Young Einstein plodded innocuously on to the stage and immediately disappeared behind his turntables. Precision cutting and scratching techniques are his thing and, while flawless at his craft, he also proved hilarious at hamming it up in the comic skits between tracks with his colleagues.

Basketball-player-sized rapper Andy Cooper easily ramped up the atmosphere of high-energy fun, the ideal foil to the comparative diminutive sleepiness (only in appearance, being perhaps the most lyrically dextrous) of Dizzy Dustin. When Einstein dropped the beat from Paul Revere, Andy C said it was the closest we’d get to them but to some UD fans they’re on a par with the Beastie Boys.

With more than 20 years of performing live together, the trio’s warmth, intelligence, wit and ability to make old-skool hip-hop storytelling seem as fresh as ever, had a rampantly appreciative audience in stitches. They always rock a jam every time they perform.