The natural habitat of the Fun Lovin' Criminals is some sweat-soaked cavern like the Astoria, so the cool formality of the Festival Hall could easily have been the kiss of death. However, Criminal mastermind Huey Morgan was totally unfazed. "You doin' all right, you chillin'?" he asked us in that comical alley-cat voice. He took a long look around the hall. "We play in nice places now, you ain't heard?"
One benefit of playing here was that, for once, you could clearly hear the layers of sound the band build into their live performance. There may have been only three of them on stage, but there were a dozen more phantom Criminals fighting to be heard, lobbing in guitar riffs or drum loops. Fast, the ingenious gadget guru, kept up a running commentary of samples and effects, triggering absurd canned laughter to punctuate Huey's stream of wisecracks and playing chunks of old movie trailers and commercials. Huey's dismal joke about the Chinese godfather ("He made me an offer I couldn't understand") was answered by a snippet of Joe Pesci from Goodfellas, doing his "Funny how?" routine. If they ever needed a house band for the Bada Bing in The Sopranos, the Criminals would be there, chanting: "Free John Gotti!"
As they ripped through a monstrously entertaining selection of past favourites and new songs, it was a vivid reminder not only of what a great dance band they are, but also how successfully they have overhauled the traditional notion of the "rock band". They exhibited their mastery of sleazy lounge-funk in Loco, and cranked out grinding hip-hop in I Got a Problem. The latter was interrupted, bizarrely, by a crowd of latecomers taking their seats while lugging large jugs of Pimm's, as if Wimbledon and the Criminals were all part of a day's corporate entertainment.
The shuffling groove of Love Unlimited was peppered with floor-quaking samples of Barry White's voice, while alarmingly realistic exploding-bomb effects ripped through the hectic punk-funk of Baby. And, of course, we got the anthemic stomp of Big Night Out, which the band used as an opportunity to parody a variety of rock'n'roll styles. For an encore, Huey sang a sensitive ballad, Sometimes You Just Can't Have It All, proving conclusively that the Criminals could be Barry Manilow if they wanted to.
· At the Anvil, Basingstoke, tonight. Box office: 01256 844244.
