"If you've got a handbag put it on the floor now," ordered New Young Pony Club singer Tahita Bulmer as she launched into another one of her strident, arty disco tunes. It was confirmation, if needed, that NYPC make music for girls to dance to, and the Astoria was indeed full of groups of female friends jumping around as much as the redoubtable Bulmer.

Perhaps they were seduced or intimidated but men soon began surging forward to dance, too, once they had seen Bulmer brandishing a microphone stand during the opening Get Lucky. She then spent the evening gyrating her limbs to the sultry rhythms, and indulging in the odd bit of heavy breathing.

This was NYPC's biggest gig so far and although it was short - 50 minutes - they easily won over the crowd with a relentless set. And the intriguing Berlin-based support band, The Whitest Boy Alive, set things up nicely with their slyly soulful songs packed with mesmerising grooves.

It was Bulmer, however, who dominated proceedings, resembling an alien version of Debbie Harry with her sparkly outfit, streetwise vocal delivery and eyes smeared in make-up.

"I want to hear that roar," she bawled at the crowd. "It's what I've been waiting for the past 27 years."

Despite Bulmer's air of slightly demented aerobics instructor, this crowd did respond noisily to almost every song from Fantastic Playroom, the London band's Mercurynominated debut.

"You feeling sexy tonight?" she asked before the coolly seductive Ice Cream, during which guitarist Andy Spence proved he can write sassy pop songs as well as pounding floor-fillers. Their accelerated cover of Technotronic's Pump up the Jam was a surprise. But the real shock was Bulmer's admission that she was stricken by a cold, yet still managed to put on such an impressively hyperactive performance.