Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Brixton Academy, London

Rising to prominence after the resurgence in garage rock led by the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have never really enjoyed the limelight quite as much as their fellow New Yorkers. Still, with three well-received studio albums the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band who have consistently grown in breadth and depth, and here Brixton finds them at the top of their game.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs start with ‘Runaway’ whilst big, round eyeballs and what looks like an oversized Japanese shadow puppet float behind the curtain. As the song builds to a crescendo, the curtain falls and the puppet is actually a beaming Karen O with false stick arms attached, wearing a pseudo-samurai helmet and pirouetting about the stage, a colourful pop-art dress billowing and swirling around her.

One of the reasons Karen O is such a captivating frontwoman is that she seems to genuinely relish being on stage, jumping around with a fantastical array of costumes at her disposal, including the fan’s favourite, the headdress made from dayglo hands. Karen keeps a packed Brixton academy entranced, whilst drummer Brian Sitek smiles beatifically as she works the crowd into a frenzy with masterful stagecraft.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform a mix of material, including several first album treats such as ‘Black Tongue’, ‘Pin’ and ‘Y Control’, as well as a rousing ‘Cheated Hearts’ and ‘Gold Lion’ from Show Your Bones. One of the oversized eyeballs bounces round the crowd for ‘Zero’, before leather-clad Karen O demands it back: “I’ve had it with that fucking eyeball man, it’s starting to stress me out!”.

With the eyeball back in its socket, she induces a feverish disco-bop with ‘Heads Will Roll’, and finishes the set serenely with an acoustic version of ‘Maps’. For the encore, she makes like a crab and fellates the microphone during ‘Art Star’, before leading the band through an incendiary ‘Date With The Night’.

Although the noughties may not have produced any clear-cut, era-defining musical movement, one thing is for certain; Karen O is this decade’s musical heroine.