"That last song," Art Brut's frontman Eddie Argos told the crowd at Concorde 2, waving his finger in the air as the band crashed into the last chord of Emily Kane, "I wrote when I was 15, before I'd ever had sex."

"This next song," he continued, "I wrote when I was 25 about how terrifying sex can be. Are you ready Art Brut? Let's play The Rusted Guns of Milan."

Everything is available for the Art Brut treatment, even the story of Eddie's failure to rise to the occasion after too much alcohol.

"It was Valentine's Day - can you imagine?" he half-sang, halftold us in a confidential manner.

And then, imploringly: "Please don't tell your friends. It doesn't mean that I don't love you, one more try with me above you."

Eddie's sense of theatre is as well-developed as his sense of fun. "Look at us, we formed a band," he exclaimed as he took the stage, wildy pointing first at diminuitive bass-player Frederica and then at drummer Mike, who plays his kit standing up with grand flourishes of his sticks. "And yes, this is my singing voice," he added with his Mark E Smith-like delivery.

Like a benevolent dictator with his flick-over haircut and pencil moustache, Eddie was here to entertain, amuse and above all empower everyone in the audience with DIY punk brilliance and post-modern sincerity.

"Form a band, form a band, form a band," he ordered, pointing at faces in the crowd.

"I recognise every one of you, and I'm coming down on the train in three weeks. If you haven't all formed bands by then, I'll be... very disappointed."