Quite how the Kooks managed to become one of Britain's biggest bands is a question their current tour goes little way to answering. Two years ago the quartet emerged from Brighton with a perfectly competent, slightly-too-polished Britpop sound. While Arctic Monkeys bagged the critical acclaim, the Kooks' debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, quietly racked up sales of a million and a half on the back of a couple of catchy singles and a scruffy look that made them indistinguishable from their student fans.

At a busy Brixton Academy to promote last month's chart-topping, second album Konk, the Kooks performed with so little panache that they may as well have been playing a pub to a handful of uninterested drinkers. The recent single Always Where I Need to Be was a nippy opener that got the female-heavy, mostly twentysomething crowd bouncing along and chanting the chorus, but its sheen of rowdiness felt fake. Matchbox was given a cute, skippy ska makeover, but by the time they got to Eddie's Gun, the yelped vocals of frontman Luke Pritchard were packing so little punch that the sound of chatting from the back threatened to drown him out. “I can barely see you,” Pritchard called out, peering at the crowd from the front of the stage, T-shirt sleeves rolled up and guitar held high. Part of the problem was that the crowd could hardly see him either. A high-octane light show was positively blinding and seemed inappropriate for a band that spent most of the evening glued to the spot.

Ooh La should have been a highlight, but although its lovely melody was intact from the start, the song was delivered with a lethargy that made it little more than a pleasant toe-tapper. About half an hour in, however, the Kooks came close to hitting their stride with a shouty One Last Time. Their best-known number, She Moves in Her Own Way, didn't quite bring the house down, but certainly perked up fans, while the new song Mr Maker revealed real summer-anthem potential.

See the Sun and Do You Wanna were quirky and chirpy, but it was a wonderful, energetic Naive that finally sent fans into a frenzy and showed what the Kooks are capable of. If only they had played all evening with as much bravado.

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