Ooh La La, it's Goldfrapp

Alison Goldfrapp has been hovering on the music scene's fringes for more than a decade, first yodelling unintelligibly on mid-Nineties albums by Tricky and Orbital, then fronting what initially appeared to be another of the interminable line of trip-hop acts that dribbled out in Portishead's wake.

It is only since reinventing Goldfrapp, the band that takes her surname and she shares with faceless production boffin Will Gregory, that genuine stardom has finally arrived.

By asking the rarely asked question: "What would glam rock sound like if it had been invented in Weimar Germany and played on synthesisers?" and dressing like a terrifying sex android, she has found a singular niche that the public adores.

Her first major London show since August's number two album, Supernature, was the spectacular proof that she is currently Britain's brightest star.

Emerging to the restrained strains of five-year-old track Utopia wearing a black catsuit and billowing pink cape, she was quickly surrounded by four prowling dancers in black bikinis and hyena masks. As she lost herself in the pounding beat of the next song, Train, she began to play a theremin by thrusting it between her legs.

She maintained her mystique by saying barely anything, although she couldn't resist the odd cackle at the size of the crowd.

Her voice was an alien croon that frequently transformed into a vaulting falsetto and sounded even stranger on the eerie Lovely Head, during which she used a different microphone effectively to sing a guitar solo.

For all the weirdness, another hummable tune was never far away. Dancers with mirrored horses' heads and neat white tails did not distract from the groovy canter of Ride A White Horse.

A bearded violinist in a long gown and white platform heels could not draw attention away from the infectious electro stomp of Satin Chic. But the visual spectacle was so effective that it was tempting to wonder what these warped imaginations would come up with if they had the money and the fanbase to play Wembley.

A mid-set lull of ballads allowed for a breather, but also demonstrated why we should be grateful that Goldfrapp were brave enough to venture away from the tired cliché of the glum producer and his slow-motion muse.

On tracks such as Strict Machine and Slide In the band were electric, the singer stalking the stage under her shock of blonde curls as the synths boiled around her.

With Kylie sadly out of action and Madonna now so in debt to her younger rivals that some are calling her Oldfrapp, Alison Goldfrapp has spotted the gap and filled it with impeccable style. Her journey to the top has been unorthodox and her style would turn heads on Mars, but this only enhances her greatness. Right now, pop desperately needs a freak like her.

Goldfrapp, Fryars