Dolly Parton, Carling Apollo, London<br></br>The Rapture, ICA, London<br></br>The Faint/Radio 4, Barfly, London

Is there anyone out there who doesn't love Dolly?

'Girls and gays", a friend predicts on the way to the Apollo, "that's what I reckon." She's 80 per cent right, as it transpires. Dolly Parton's first UK shows in 20 years have indeed dragged out a bizarre tribe of ladies in embroidered denim, gentlemen in blonde curly wigs, and an element of absolute mentalists (about which, more later). But is there anyone who doesn't love Dolly? Tonight is as much about Dolly The Person as Dolly The Singer, with lengthy and well-rehearsed anecdotes between each number. She mercilessly lays it on thick with the story of her upbringing. This is Dolly The Myth. In reality, of course, she was a child star as early as the 1950s, so things can't have been so bad. In Dolly's version, as portrayed in the tearjerker "Coat Of Many Colours", she grew up in impoverished Locust Ridge, Sevier County, high up in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, "the farmer's daughter they made all the jokes about", the fourth of 12 children. When people asked if her parents were Catholics, she replied "No, we're just passionate hillbilly folk."

And passionate hillbilly folk is where she's at musically nowadays. The Blue-niques, a traditional bluegrass octet, are a million miles from the slick showbiz bands she worked with in the Eighties. Her last three albums have been in a bluegrass style, and have won awards and renewed acclaim.

If these are Dolly's musical roots, they're the only kind she'll ever show us. Dolly Parton is a physical oddity: up close, she has the liver-spotted hands and ravined neck of the 56 year old she is, but the same legs and bum, and a better bust, than she had at 26. She disarms criticism of her body modification by being quite open about it: "Lord knows it costs a lot to look this cheap," she says in one of her well-practiced quips. This is Parton's saving grace.

Although Dolly's straightforward sentimentality can clash with British reserve and detachment, she is much smarter and blessed with far more self-awareness than she is generally given credit for (it must be "all that British blood in my veins from way back"). This blonde ain't dumb: she's also Dolly The Businesswoman. With her 87-acre Dollywood theme park, Parton is the biggest employer in Tennessee, so big she has her own zipcode and currency.

Tottering around the stage in a riot of redness – ruby sequins, ruby lips, ruby slippers – she clambers with difficulty onto a stool. "Let's see if I can sit down in this little tight dress. This could be the best part of the show. Or the worst." Safely seated, she jokes, "That wasn't as easy as you think. I think I left no rhinestone unturned down there..." A gag she probably first aired in The Grand Old Opry in 1978, but it's a good 'un. Rather less predictable is what comes next: Dolly straps on a guitar for a rattle'n'rolling "Train, Train" ("You didn't think I could play this, didja?"). This being Country & Western, maudlin numbers dominate, of which the most extreme example must be "Mountain Angel" from her Little Sparrow album, the tale of a bereaved mother wrongly accused of being a witch, possessed by "satan's insane lure". "I know you love these sad old songs" she says after one. "It's another sad one," she apologises after another, "but you deserve it," citing the Nashville truism that "If you want to write a hit, write a hurt."

Before long, she gets her hits out. For the wonderful, if implausible "Jolene", she acknowledges her gay following by changing the lyrics: "Your smile is like a breath of spring/ Your voice is soft like summer rain/ And I cannot compete with you... drag queen."

Tapping out a stenographer's rhythm with her fingernails, she launches into "9 To 5". If you don't think "Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen/ Pour myself a cup of ambition" is one of the best opening couplets in pop history, there's something wrong with you.

She encores with a rendition of "Stairway To Heaven" even more incongruous than the Rolf Harris version (because, unlike Rolf, she isn't joking). During the quiet bits, a gang of barking mad Irish women begin ranting loudly in lengthy paragraphs which are so incoherent it's impossible to tell whether it's praise or abuse. At the end, they invade the stage and security have to whisk Dolly to the wings for her own safety, her ruby slippers kicking in thin air.

Alternative music in 2002 seems to be reliving the moves of 20 years ago in sequence but bands like The Rapture, a four-piece from New York via San Francisco, are attempting to recreate a moment of fission/fusion – specifically the moment when the punks, bored with 1-2-3-4 and pogoing, decided that maybe disco didn't suck after all.

On tracks like their wildly sought-after single "House Of Jealous Lovers" (just re-issued) and "Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks", gangly singer-guitarist Luke Jenner and singer-bassist Matt Safer repeatedly double-up as though they've been hit by sudden stomach cramps, yelp like hyaenas, and chop out frenetic funk riffs, dragging half a beat behind the rhythms played on trebly hi-hats, toms and snares by the excellently-named drummer Vito Roccoforte. It should feel stale and second-hand, but it doesn't.

The encore – "Louie Louie" (they make the words up, just like everyone else does bar The Kingsmen) and Gary Glitter's "Rock'N'Roll" – is possibly the coolest thing any band has done this year. Garage-obsessed Brit-rock doesn't have anything to compare to this.

The Rapture share their painfully hip DFA production team (aka James Murphy and Tim Holdsworthy) with Radio 4, an agit-funk quintet from Brooklyn. Named after the PiL track, the overtly political Radio 4 might run the risk of being a worthy-but-dull soul-cialist troupe (Working Week, say), but they're saved by a healthy streak of Parisian situationism.

Centred around fisherman's hatted singer-bassist Anthony Roman and singer-guitarist Tommy Williams, Radio 4 have just released an album, Gotham!, which berates mayor Rudolf Giuliani for strangling New York's music scene (they practice what they preach: they own a record shop which is one of the hubs of the scene). By rights, the message should be lost on London ears. Then again, with venues losing their licenses east, west and centre, perhaps it strikes a chord.

America has always had a synthpop underground, adjacent to the British/European variant. In the days of Romo, they had Nancy Boy and Romania. In the era of Electroclash, they have Adult and The Faint. Hailing from the unlikely mid-west wastelands of Omaha, Nebraska, The Faint are a bit of a one-off.

This year's "Agenda Suicide"/ "Worked Up So Sexual" single gave a taster of next year's Danse Macabre album, and hinted at influences beyond the usual Kraftwerk/ Numan/ League orthodoxy. Tonight's set sounds, in roughly equal parts, like Duran Duran and Nine Inch Nails with a touch of Psychedelic Furs. The visual clues are present and correct: lopsided fringes, angular shoulder-dancing (from keyboardist Jacob Thiele) of which Nick Rhodes would be proud, and I'm sure one of them is wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt.

At this point, the re-enactment/renaissance dilemma might rear its pretty head, but The Faint have enough imagination to dodge it. For example, smoke machines are proscribed by venue regulations, so singer Todd Baechle has an idea: he asks us all to light up cigarettes instead.

s.price@independent.co.uk