If the success of a concert can be gauged by the number of moist and flailing bodies flung ceilingwards during the performance, then Radiohead's only London show in their brief homecoming tour was a winner.

Cramming in a rammed and roasting club gig, at the Garage, in Highbury, before heading off to America, where Dame Fortune has been smiling upon them recently, the Oxford five-piece carried themselves like stadium veterans and played as if their narrow behinds depended on it.

Having manfully overcome a lingering bout of laryngitis, singer Thom E.Yorke erred on the cautious side of demonic throughout, but still, one suspected, never quite adhered to his doctor's orders.

Operating within conventional rock parameters, Radiohead, along with England's other hot property the Auteurs, are living proof that the restless ghost of the late 1970s cult band the Only Ones stumbles influentially on. Like the Auteurs's Luke Haines, Yorke's smudged mid-Atlantic drawl managed to combine vitriol and vulnerability while maintaining an unsettling air of stifled menace. This was best demonstrated on the band's deformed anthem "Creep", an arresting piece that attempts in its twisted way to celebrate the positive aspects of self-loathing. Having decided that he is not one of life's special people, Yorke sighs "I'm a creep" and, as if he were rather proud of the fact, goes on: "I'm a weirdo." The song's muted verse, which crackles into a colossal, cascading chorus, has served as a template for several other Radiohead songs, although none carry the full jaw-dropping impact of this startling classic.

Working through a selection of material from Pablo Honey, their debut album, lead guitarist Jon Greenwood soon revealed himself to be something of a closet fret-melter employing a healthy tone and a frantic technique.

As another over-excited punter was propelled through the humid air, one knew that next time Radiohead returned home they would be playing in a considerably larger venue, if only for hygiene's sake.