Indie radio station Xfm's Christmas parties have become a seasonal event over the past few years. Now held at four other venues around the country, each bill generally comprises of the coolest talent from the surrounding area, with proceeds going to homeless charity Shelter. So Brixton was playing host to Harrow singer-songwriter Kate Nash, Oxford lads Supergrass and south London's Bloc Party.

However, it may have surprised some that 20-year-old Nash was first on the line-up, considering the amount of hype since her debut album Made Of Bricks went straight to No 1 in August.

But despite her tight backing band and a rather splendid sparkly silver playsuit, her lack of experience showed. Kate failed to engage with the young crowd, odd when you consider the storytelling nature and youth vernacular of her songs.

In fact, her set only really got going halfway through when she played catchy hit Foundations, a summery slice of piano-led pop with matteroffact lyrics about a relationship gone sour.

Thing is, nice middle-class Kate can't rock out. On her last song, the forthcoming and rather stomping single Pumpkin Soup, the redhead made a show of bashing the living daylights out of her keyboard, but it was entirely unconvincing.

Coupled with an idiosyncratic but keeningly thin mockney-accented voice and sometimes facile lyrics, she's not yet the convincing sum of parts you'd expect the imaginary lovechild of The Streets' Mike Skinner and Regina Spektor to be.

Next up, indie veterans Supergrass showed how it should be done. Despite the absence of bassist Mick Quinn, recovering from a broken back and replaced tonight by frontman Gaz's younger brother Charly, this hugely-underrated outfit played a blinder.

Even though they debuted a lot of new material, liberal use of pogo-inducing hits like Moving, Richard III and Caught By The Fuzz got the party started.

Gaz worked the crowd at every opportunity and the supremely melodic new tracks such as Rebel In You still had the audience moshing furiously, which bodes well for the album release.

But the night belonged to Bloc Party. Kele Okereke has matured into a charismatic frontman and didn't stint on his showmanship, kicking huge, glitter-filled balloons into the euphoric crowd, who had their arms aloft in joy for the duration of their hour-long set. Bloc Party's spikily anthemic indie rock tunes were unrelenting in their appeal.

They were at once uplifting, compelling and irresistibly dancey, to the extent that security guards were squirting overheated revellers with water on a freezing night.

High-octane hits such as Helicopter, Hunting For Witches and Flux proved that, while Bloc Party haven't had a No1 hit like Kate Nash, they were truly worthy of the headline slot.