Even if Stereophonics singer Kelly Jones hadn't been on stage, it would have been hard to overlook him. He was the only person in this boiling little room who was wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses. As ever with him and his now-veteran band, it was all about the little things - the shades, the veins standing out on his neck as he forced his ravaged vocal chords to hang in there for just another couple of songs. It all added up to a rather heroic showing by a group whose fearless uncoolness will see them still selling tickets when groovier rivals are just withered memories.

There's an arena tour in November, but with four months to wait, Stereophonics decided to bring their arena-sized show to the pub-sized ICA. Apparently, they didn't realise that applying stadium dynamics to a small venue equates to the US army flushing out General Noriega by playing heavy metal through huge speakers.

It didn't do any favours to material from their new album, Pull the Pin, either. Interestingly grungy in its recorded form, Soldiers Make Good Targets was pure sludge on stage; It Means Nothing came out sounding like a guitars-at-dawn showdown between Jones and hired hand Scott James rather than the measured thing it is on album. "It's a classic, trust me," was Jones's description of the latter song, and who knows, maybe it will someday inspire the same lumpen thud of delight as accredited classics such as Just Looking and Bartender and the Thief. Perhaps they'll be worth another listen in November.