If you are looking for innovation, look someplace else.

The blues does not move forward and that is not a problem for Alabama 3, an ensemble troupe from the depths of South London who in another life might have wound up lecturing on sociology in some polytechnic.

The band's founders Jake Black (aka The Very Reverend Dr Wayne Love) and Rob Spragg (aka Larry Love) had one good idea - hitch a relentless acid house beat to a country and western melody - but it has proved durable.

They bring the dancefloor-filling combination to Brighton with metronomic regularity and it went down a storm with the audience of ageing geography teachers and their kids.

On this evidence, the tracks on the new album, The Men From W.O.M.B.L.E., are no great stretch from the first album, Exile On Coldharbour Lane, released in 1997.

The air was let out of the room by a slow ballad, Following Rainbows, and the decision to allow Aurora Dawn to close the show singing solo resulted in an oddly downbeat finale.