Meltdown: Supergrass/Bobby Conn, Royal Festival Hall, London

Last of the Britpop heroes

Of all the bands who broke through in the Britpop years, Supergrass, from Oxford, seem to have weathered the vagaries of fashion best. As Oasis sink into (still-lucrative) self-parody, and Blur withdraw entirely to allow Damon Albarn to indulge his wanderlust, the trio seem to be the last standard-bearers for straightforward English guitar pop. Though seemingly an unlikely addition to Bowie's erratic if intriguing Meltdown line-up, it's easy to see why Gaz, Mickey and Danny might appeal to the curator. "Pumping on Your Stereo" owes plenty to "Rebel Rebel", while an unnamed new tune appears to reference Bowie's lyrics directly.

Tonight's set is a straight blend of old hits, such as the brilliant and underrated "Moving", the classic two-chord trick of "Richard III", and a fabulous thrash through "Sun Hits the Sky", alongside tunes from their next album, due later this year. The new, ultra-limited single "Never Done Nothing Like That Before" is a gleefully received shout-along, while the languid "Grace" and bucolic "Can't Get Up" are impressively relaxed. An encore of "Caught by the Fuzz" again proves it to be the truest punk song since punk, though the real worth of the new material won't be known until they play more convivial, unseated venues in the autumn.

The Chicagoan Bobby Conn has received excellent notices for his third album, a bemusingly eclectic set entitled The Golden Age, best described as his revenge for a horrid suburban childhood. Imagine a musical equivalent of The Ice Storm and you won't be far wrong. Sporting a pale-pink jacket and ochre trousers, the shared uniform of his band (which includes a guitarist and bassist who look, and play, as though purchased at the American instrument shop the Guitar Center), the diminutive Conn is something of a showman, though one who prefers to unsettle rather than placate.

The opener, "Angels", is, as on disc, a highlight, its tale of confused sexuality and suicide genuinely disturbing in its brutal honesty, but as his band cruise through dislocated numbers such as "You've Come a Long Way Baby" (title shared with a Seventies cigarette advert aimed at women), which fitfully slips from metal riffing to lounge jazz, the effect is to induce restlessness in an otherwise well-disposed audience. As he slips yet again from Prince-style falsetto into pompous passages of prog rock, the stylistic clashes become oddly predictable rather than jarring, while the persistent violinist set me to wondering whether there's ever been a decent rock band featuring such an instrumentalist.

Conn is undeniably talented – lyrically, he is at least the equal of anyone working today – but, much like his last album, this 45-minute set seemed to last a very long time. It's telling that the lunatic, though musically straightforward, conspiracist rant "United Nations" closed the set on a mercifully dumb high.