Performance art is a tricky business. As a spectator you feel inadequate because you can’t be quite sure you’ve really understood what the artist is getting at. The artist can’t be certain that the audience truly appreciates what he or she is trying to convey. The artist who calls herself No Bra and supported Selfish Cunt tonight is destined to suffer eternally from this dilemma. Not only does she dispense with her bra. She has no use for blouse, skirt or trousers. By appearing on stage wearing only her knickers she’s trying to tell us something. It’s quite hard to work out what other than she’s hoping to get a major market share in the key demographics of 14 year old boys and men who’ve never been on a French beach. Her backing track is pretty good, edgy electronica over which she doesn’t exactly sing and doesn’t exactly talk – it’s more of a really badly out of tune rant. A sample lyric is “f##k him, f##k him, he takes it up the ar#e.” This could be an insight to the fluidity of human sexuality or uninspired vulgarity by someone without a point to make. It was the worst live performance I’ve ever seen.

The major disappointment of the evening was missing one of the other support acts. Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump had finished their set by the time I’d arrived after an hour at a Trotskyist cabal discussing whether or not we should support self determination for South Ossetia. Don’t you envy the thrills and glamour?

SC – as we’ll call them from now on – are a pretty uncompromising type of band who do enjoy upsetting people. Their first single had two tracks “Britain is Shit” and “Fuck the Poor”. Lovely. Once upon a time there would have been pickets to prevent both them and No Bra from taking the stage.

Occasionally tonight there were flashes of genius. Singer Martin Tomlinson has a commanding stage presence and from where I was standing seemed able to move across the stage as if he were skateboarding. The band’s strength is the guitar work of Patrick Constable. The set really worked when he was given free rein and Tomlinson’s occasionally histrionic vocals were silenced. Despite the band’s intense energy the room never really caught fire. This could have been because they were launching their new album and the material was largely unfamiliar to the audience or people don’t throw themselves into the music anymore.

With some confidence we can predict that SC will never get to play Wembley Stadium but in a world of music dominated by dull conservative twaddle it’s a great comfort to know that there are still bands willing to make an angry noise.