La Roux & I Blame Coco @ Cardiff University, Cardiff

Androgyny was the name of the game for tonight’s gig: Cue futuristic flame-haired and flamboyant boyish girl Elly Jackson (La Roux) with support from tomboyish Coco Sumner, the grunge-pixie singer with the jawline and shoulder-skimming hair of a 70s rocker.

Dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt, waistcoat and her trademark shorts, an effortlessly cool Coco Sumner takes to the stage for I Blame Coco’s support set of punkish electro-rock, which despite on-the-road strain in her vocals, she hits the mark with the ace ‘Self Machine’.

La Roux ,the futuristic quiffster, has chart-stormed with her and producer Ben Langmaid's high-pitched killer 8os synthtastic music. No wonder, then, that Cardiff Student’s Union is rammed full of young hot-panted things screaming along, bouncing and swigging from their £3-a-bottle Foster’s, more than ready to watch the One-to-Watch turned electro-pop queen.

Langmaid keeps his involvement strictly studio, leaving the live act to Jackson - a role she seems to be getting very comfortable in. Gone are the hunched shoulders of earlier stage appearances, instead 2010’s answer to Annie Lennox is a walking sculpture, with gravity-defying hair and architectural clothing. The stern vocals soar high too, falsetto flitting above swooping synthetics and dub step mean streaks.

A little into the set she strips down to a slim white tuxedo jacket, her oversized pedant necklace pendulum-swinging along to her Molly Ringwald moves. She sings from last year’s self-titled album, pleasing the crowd with tune after tune: ‘I’m Not Your Toy’, from hit singles ‘Bulletproof’, ‘In for the Kill’ and ‘Quicksand’ to the well spliced, heartbreaking ballads.

Slowing it down, the range and tone of Elly’s voice becomes more apparent. “Oh, she really can sing,” a girl beside me exclaims to her friend. The folk influences of her upbringing shine out when she picks up a guitar and takes a seat to play solo, suggesting that they are an act who could last the distance as their repertoire matures.

At other intervals Jackson turns down her intensity and apes the chants that are becoming commonplace at her gigs – as suggests another. “La Roux, La Roux, La Roux is on fire”. Indeed she is, crackling with enthusiasm, burning neon bright.