Back when Pete Doherty was still interested in music, he used to arrange gigs at a few hours notice, with details posted in a phone box in Exmouth Market and spread by word of mouth.

So began the notion of the "street gig" - something rather special, rather exclusive and rather memorable.

Last night's Basement Jaxx "street gig" was hardly in the same subversive league, as it was being filmed by Channel 4 and sponsored by a mobile phone multinational (although The Vaults - under London Bridge station - were catacombs so subterranean that, oh glorious marketing irony, mobile telephones did not work).

It was, however, an event. There were jugglers and stiltwalkers. There were masks for almost all, there were carnival drummers who doubtless hailed from Bromley or Balham, but who looked vaguely Brazilian.

There were actors and there was a tarot card reader who cheerily explained that I "leap into things naively, but that's balanced by your inner strength". A good thing too, for after two hours waiting for Basement Jaxx (not the band's fault; everyone had been ordered to arrive two hours too early with the threat of a lock-out if the venue was full), I needed all the inner strength I could muster.

No matter. Their hip ship may have sailed some time ago, but they set about storming The Vaults with admirable gusto. Somewhere among the onstage throng were the Basement Jaxx duo: Felix Buxton on spaceship-style keyboards and occasional heckler-quality vocals, still looking like a dishevelled post-grad student, and Simon Ratcliffe, on guitar but in a sparkly top no shop has sold since 1978.

For backroom boys they put on a sparkling show. Its success owed everything to the pair acknowledging their dearth of charisma and delegating to those with a surplus of the stuff.

So, illuminated by a retina-scorching white-light, were the kilt-clad Atlantic Horns and various combinations of four ever-changing vocalists, including two giggly, jiggly mountains of womanhood.

The immediate priority in an era where Basement Jaxx are in danger of slipping off the radar was to showcase their forthcoming album Crazy Itch Radio. "You don't mind us playing new songs, do you?" they asked. When they were as exuberantly catchy as Take Me Back To Your House, the answer was "no". The reaction was more equivocal vis-a-vis the current single, Hush Boy, although on stage it had more bite than the flaccid recorded version.

The boisterous crowd yearned for older fare. They got it. Where's Your Head At? was delivered in startling fashion, as if by shouty teenage punks waving bottles of cider at passing stockbrokers, but Oh My Gosh was its amiable old self and for a few heady minutes, nobody had forgotten Basement Jaxx.