From their moptops down to their winklepickers, Franz Ferdinand are a pop panacea: Everyone likes them.

They seemed to have effortlessly covered all bases. Art-school rock, punk, Eighties, a bit of metal and Radio 2 easy listening - as the lyrics to The Dark Of The Matinee famously refer.

So while the kids got sweaty up front, mum and dad and their three children sat on the balcony, foot-tapping and nodding along.

Franz's tour marks the launch of their second album, You Could Have It So Much Better, the name and artwork of which continues the striking constructivist imagery from their first, eponymous album.

In fact, it's not the just the artwork which continues. The styled sound and their appearance segue as neatly as one of their well-crafted songs.

Franz are a tightly packaged unit but with one additional ingredient to lift them above commercial stooge-pop groups: Credibility.

So after The Editors' energetic support set was over, the stage was transformed, with a red floor and sweeping stand with the drum kit at its centre, to look part Fifties TV pop studio, part brand-new London club.

The four of them were slow to start, meandering towards their hit tracks. While they were getting there, it seemed their oh-so-cleverness might be, well, a bit dull.

But then the pace lifted. The huge backdrop fell to reveal the coolest stage I've seen at the Brighton Centre (since that of X Factor, natch).

As they got stuck into singles Do You Want To and Take Me Out, the crowd seemed to almost rise on the soundwaves coming from the stage and the double-strummed, sub-punk metallic kerr-ching of their guitar sound fused energetically with the fast drumming.

The three guitarists skipped around the stage, at one point, during Matinee, all standing on the drum platform, then simultaneously scissor-kicking into the air. Cute.

Gone was the fey art school posturing, replaced with sweaty rock. Alex, Nick, Bob and Paul might not be monsters of rock but the preppy, pixie moptops flung out a banging yet aesthetic sound, equal parts style and substance.