A Tribute to Nico, Royal Festival Hall, LondonCSS, Concorde 2, Brighton

It's one of fate's cruellest twists that Christa Päffgen met one of the most uncool and unglamorous rock'n'roll deaths in history, falling off a bicycle into a ditch while holidaying in Ibiza in 1988. For the woman whose whole existence, in her guise as Nico, was predicated on being cooler than icebergs, it wasn't meant to end that way.

Nico was muse and conduit to, it seemed, the entire Sixties era: best known as an iconic Warhol starlet – an Edie Sedgwick who could sing – she had already borne a child with Alain Delon and befriended Bob Dylan and the Stones by the time she lent her cryogenic hauteur to the Velvet Underground's debut album, and later dated Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

It's the interval between her Sixties heyday and her Eighties decline (addicted to heroin and living in Salford) to which this tribute concert is devoted. Curator, conductor and colleague John Cale has shunned Nico's "hits" (no "Femme Fatale", "I'll Be Your Mirror" or "All Tomorrow's Parties" from the Velvets era, no "These Days" nor, to my particular regret, her sublime debut single "I'm Not Saying") and instead focused on the dustiest corners of an already obscure catalogue. There are no speeches, no word on why we're here and – strangely, given the inward-spiralling narcissism of the whole Factory/VU project (the Hayward Gallery next door is exhibiting Warhol's photos of himself) – no visuals.

Guests ghost in and out, unannounced. We're five songs in before anyone – it happens to be a Fiery Furnace – even says hello. A straw-hatted Mark "Sparklehorse" Linkous, such a feckless slacker he needs Cale to heighten his music stand for him, is the target of a frustrated "Who are you?" heckle. "I'm Boo Radley," he disarmingly replies.

A peculiar figure stalks on and strews rose petals from a bowler hat over the band. It is Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, who treats us to his trademark ham "Alas poor Yorick" poses, and who will later announce, in portentous tones, "Shalom, peace, salaam" to stifled titters. He's a comedy genius, chiefly because he doesn't know it.

Lisa Gerrard of Dead Dan Dance, statue still in a silver ballgown, is enjoyably Norma Desmond-esque. Mark Lanegan, however, looks distractingly Dumb & Dumber. Fyfe Dangerfield of Guillemots coaxes horror-movie thunderclaps out of the longest grand piano I've ever seen, before the sonorous Liz Green wheels out a wooden box that looks an awful lot like a coffin on legs – they wouldn't, surely? – but turns out to be a rare, 19th-century keyboard called a dulcitone.

On paper, James Dean Bradfield's heroic, soulful rock voice ought to be a mismatch for Nico's icy aloofness, but works well on "Janitor of Lunacy", a fitting choice for the unsung Hong Kong Phooey of the Manics freakshow. Throughout, the unforgiving chill of Nico's 1970s works – part Krautrock, part Arabesque – is impressively re-created. Eventually, as the performers gather for a finale of "All That Is My Own", someone finds the words to break the uneasy diffidence. It's that man Murphy. "Happy Deathday, Nico..."

If there's a feeling around CSS that they're the year-before-last's thing, and if their second album Donkey sounded ready for the knacker's yard, you could have fooled anyone who's seen them live lately.

The Sao Paulo party-starters' stage is bedecked with a couple of dozen helium balloons and strategically positioned champagne glasses, and when Lovefoxxx emerges in a headdress that looks like a whole dead peacock, kabuki eye make-up and the gown of an Amazonian priestess, there's no turning back.

Showering glitter confetti over an enthusiastic crowd, Lovefoxxx is the focal point of a show in which the Cansei De Ser Sexy and the Donkey material fuse into one electro-funk riot.

There are a few moments, during the climactic "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above", when the bass goes heavy mental, the strobes go into overdrive and their opera singer friend Atonio ululates like a Brazilian banshee, when it feels as if you're a guest at the disco before the apocalypse. If the party's over, no one's told CSS.