Arriving in London two days after the new-look Staff Benda Bilili, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars provided a further rousing reminder of how hardship can be transformed into good-time music. Both bands have used songs as a weapon for survival, both have been helped by award-winning documentaries about their dramatic careers, and both have succeeded because they are good musicians, not because of their novelty value.

The All Stars' story started in the chaos of the Sierra Leone civil war. The band's members fled to the refugee camps of Guinea, where they wrote songs to tell their story and boost their morale. Ten years on, they have released four albums and transformed themselves into slick live performers. They are currently on a tour that will take them from Europe to the US, where they spend much of their time, and which included one surprisingly low-key London show, in the hot and wildly crowded back room of a Dalston pub.

I suspect that they enjoyed this sweaty and intimate experience more than some of their concert hall appearances – they are a great club band. There were five Refugees on stage, including two percussionists, a guitarist who occasionally played keyboards, and four singers who took it in turns to provide the lead. There was no great musical innovation here, but they cheerfully made use of a variety of styles, from West African influences that included highlife and soukous, to a dash of funk. And then there was reggae, which has remained massively popular in West Africa thanks to such performers as Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly. The All Stars paid tribute to Steel Pulse and Black Uhuru but their songs reflected the easygoing era of Jimmy Cliff, and included cheerful morality tales such as Big Fat Dog. Not one of the great African bands, maybe, but enormous fun.

• At Glasgow Green, 1 August. Box office: 0141 287 5064.