Someone walking in off the street might wonder at first what this camply flapping, foggy-spectacled, middle-aged nerd is doing at the microphone. But Craig Finn crosses early Woody Allen with early Bruce Springsteen.

The hit US medical sitcom Scrubs was finally pronounced dead last March. While UK fans of the show cling to the lifeline of a repeat prescription of reruns, next weekend some will find further remedy for their loss with the arrival in London of The Blanks, the a cappella band who made frequent appearances on the show, led by the regular character Ted Buckland .

From Long John Baldry to Jarvis Cocker, beanpole pop stars seem to inspire a special kind of affection, and from the sensational performance he gave here, Hamilton Leithauser is worthy of being – as it were – right up there with them.

The seven-piece Vancouver collective The New Pornographers somehow remain Canada's most underrated band.

"As we're at Shepherd's Bush Empire, I thought it would be appropriate to tell you a story about sheep," says Brian Briggs, nervously, in the Oxford indie-folk quartet's signature style of banter. Stornoway's frontman rambles about a study on making lamb fat into fuel, which leads the lads into "Fuel Up" and gets a big laugh.

Diminutive Scottish-born singer K T Tunstall sprang on stage at the Shepherd's Bush Empire wearing skin-tight leather leggings and a baggy T-shirt, immediately invigorating the audience with her firecracker presence.

“Well, well, well,” vocalist Theo Hutchcraft purrs darkly. He’s clad in a sharp suit and white shirt buttoned up to the collar, his scraped-back hair emphasising his strikingly pale skin and angular jaw. “There are lots of people here,” he muses, smiling seductively and gesturing to the jostling crowd with all the new-wave charm of a man who’s just stepped out of 1981.

It's an intimate start, as Fyfe Dangerfield, the lead singer of Guillemots, stands alone to sing a quiet rendition of "Faster than the Setting Sun". But then, after an almost maudlin first verse, his band sneak onstage and the beat kicks in. It's a sudden shift, yet feels utterly natural, exhibiting a melodic and tonally thrilling schizophrenia that sets the mood for the evening.

Ah, another guise for the enigmatic Will Oldham to confuse the public with. Having released material as Palace, Palace Music, Palace Songs and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Oldham is now officially including the Cairo Gang (Emmett Kelly and Shahzad Ismaily) as a collective, having put out The Wonder Show of the World together in March.

While the prevalent musical trend of the past decade has clearly obsessed upon reincarnating every Eighties style imaginable, Wirral psychonauts The Coral have quietly been refining their musical genius. The hybrid style of r'n'b and a taste for the surreal that defines their sound has consistently strengthened, culminating in the creative vision of their sixth album, Butterfly House.