Three Californian sisters conquered Brighton on Friday night. Of course, Brighton was already half in love with Haim before they took to the stage – the excitement was palpable and the applause deafening.

At one point the crowd was so enthralled with the spectacle they even put away their camera phones for at least five minutes – a rare and beautiful event at gigs these days.

It was a mutual love affair: the Haim girls love Brighton because it’s a party town and they credit their Great Escape appearance here two years ago as the start of their UK success.

Their world domination continued last month when they won the NME Award for Best International Band (and Best Twitter feed for Alana Haim’s musings @babyhaim).

On record Haim sound like Wilson Phillips, a blend of nu-folk, Californian soft rock and R&B. Live, they transformed into rock goddesses – all blistering guitar riffs, seriously sexy attitude, bare legs and swishing hair.

The vocals weren’t great and the lyrics got a bit lost in the mix but that didn’t matter. It was all about the guitars and the drums, and Haim rocked.