Everyone has a misfortune in their life; Juliette Lewis's is that this isn't 1989 and she's not Axl Rose. Not that she's going to let these accidents of birth hinder her. From the moment she struts on stage, muscles flexing, you would think she really was fronting the most exciting rock band on the planet.

The Licks, however, are very far from being the most exciting rock band on the planet. Their sound is entirely derivative and so lacking in distinction that one song ploughs into the next without a single feature to distinguish it from what came before or what comes next. But it doesn't matter, because Lewis clearly loves her band, loves every clanging, squalling guitar note, every throb of bass, every rudimentary whack at the drums, and that love proves unexpectedly, irresistibly infectious.

She's probably still better known as an actor - earlier this year she starred in a Sam Shepard play in London's West End - but it's hard to imagine Lewis getting as much of a kick out of the day job as she does out of this. Flailing about the stage, straggly hair glistening with sweat, she is a vision of earnest dedication. As a singer, she leaves much to be desired: her deep, woody voice turns lyrics into indecipherable mulch. As a frontwoman, though, she's magnetic, inspiring, faultless. From anyone else, her bucking bronco dance moves, her terrible between-song banter ("It's time to lick your lips and shake your hips, because it's Sticky Honey") and worse dress sense - white vest, leather trousers and stiletto boots - might come across as ironic. Not Lewis. She believes in the power and glory of rowdy, bombastic rawk. The wonder of her exhilarating performance is that she turns everyone in the audience into a believer as well.