live: Afghan Whigs Astoria, London

In the Afghan Whigs song "Crime Scene Part One", Greg Dulli asks "Do you think I'm beautiful? Or do you think I'm evil?" You're never quite certain, but the fun is in finding out. One moment you think you could take him home to meet your mum. She'd adore him; he's immaculately turned out and always on standby with a spot of topical chit-chat to fill those awkward silences. "You've got all those mad cows roaming the countryside and they've all gotta be killed," he observes between songs, apropos of nothing. He's even ready with his own conspiracy theory: "I think Morrissey's behind it," he beams. You'd have to be a right mad cow not to warm to him.

But then you listen to the stories of love spurned and desecrated that lurk behind the power chords and anthemic singalongs, and you realise that this is music best approached with goggles and fire-resistant clothing. Despite its scorching soreness, Dulli's confessional writing doesn't ring hollow like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden - two bands who would sell their lumberjack shirts for his tunes. He's got soul, you see. It's there in tonight's rousing version of "Going to Town", which he augments with a verbatim recital of the intro to Prince's "Housequake" (Madonna's "Into the Groove" pops up later too, just to keep us on our toes).

The Afghan Whigs sweat passion, from the bewitching moan of the electric cello over "Honky's Ladder", to the carefully sustained crescendo of tolling guitars on "Faded". The band are as sharp as their suits and as seductive as their helter-skeltering melodies. You can tell they never have to think twice about picking up the right knife and fork.This is more than you could say for a large part of the audience, who presumably only reach for cutlery when there's no knuckle-duster to hand.

Two songs into the band's set, there was some nasty business near the front of the stage. What had started as spirited pogo-ing suddenly erupted into a frenzied fist-fight (though to give the brawlers their due, they did appear to be timing their punches with the drum beats). As security men waded in, Dulli remained unruffled, casting an anthropologist's eye over the whole affair. Like the fans, his songs, particularly those on the new album Black Love, are all but constipated with bile and bitterness - they prove it's a thin line between love and doing someone over with a length of lead piping. A date with Dulli could be just that; he spits arrows tipped with acid. Beautiful or evil? Your guess is as good as mine. Give in and Whig out.