AHEAD of this tour to showcase The Go! Team’s third album, Rolling Blackouts, band leader and talisman Ian Parton floated the idea this may be the last chance to catch the Brighton-based sextet.

If it was to make sure they got a crowd, it worked. The show was a sweaty sell-out. There were as many dripping, balding oldies struggling back to the bar from the mosh pit as check-shirt clad students, which is testament to the appeal of the group’s infectious hopscotch pop.

Lead singer Ninja kicked and jumped and star-fished her way through new songs which bounced along as gleefully and relentlessly as anything off Proof Of Youth and Thunder, Lightning, Strike.

There was T.O.R.N.A.D.O., which opened proceedings with an all-out aural assault, and Secretary, on which she left the mic to plonk away on the instrument swappers’ latest percussive tool – a typewriter.

On Ready To Go Steady, an optimistic slice of bubblegum pop, Kaori took lead vocals, her childish voice evoking the dreamy days of playground love.

2004 single The Power Is On was as good as it got, with two drummers battering beats behind a screaming, joyous Ninja.

The older The Go! Team get, the more adventurous they become. It is both their curse and their charm. It is the reason they are so smiley and enthusiastic. It the reason they never know their next move.