So, did they play all the singles? Well no, not all of them, given that they’ve released 26 of the buggers in the past year alone, frisbeeing one out every fortnight in the sort of kamikaze experiment contemplated by only the truly inspired or the slightly desperate. Ash, on the evidence of last night's gig, might just be a bit of both.

I’d not been to the Bloomsbury Ballroom before, but over the past five years or so the likes of Amy Winehouse and Martha Reeves have played this plush Art Deco space. Somewhat disconcertingly, apart from the stage, the rest of the hall was in virtual darkness which suited Dub Colossus perfectly: this intriguing collective of British and Ethiopian musicians are purveyors of intense, atmospheric dance music who actually benefited from this dramatic lack of lighting which made the stage appear to glow like a coal furnace.

Unlikely cool. It’s what unites LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip. They’re the geeks and outsiders who made it to being hip on the dancefloor. These improbable, subversive electro-pop heroes have united this autumn for what for fans has been a dream double-headline tour. Both bands have had albums out this year and both albums have been well received. But for James Murphy the rumours are that this may be the last tour he does as LCD Soundsystem. And last night he sure was playing as if saying a long goodbye to the ones he’d loved.

Given the somewhat viral nature of Odd Future's rapidly flourishing notoriety, it's both appropriate and a little ironic that their debut UK performance should take place in the basement of a pub in a part of north London where the underground doesn't run. Also known as OFWGKTA (or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), this 10-strong self-contained teenage rap conglomerate from Los Angeles has united hip-hop über-nerds, jaded old-schoolers and regular rap fans alike – a remarkable achievement in itself – in praise of unique DIY aesthetic, both musical and visual, inspired by, amongst other things, a love of early Eminem, skateboard culture and the consumption of marijuana.

Terry Riley is one of the great unsung heroes of contemporary music, the ur-minimalist who shaped the creative paths of John Adams, Peter Townshend, Mike Oldfield and Philip Glass, to name just a sample of the wide range of musicians who have been inspired by his raga-tinged loops and all-enveloping electronic soundscapes. This week Bristol has hosted a series of exciting concerts celebrating the 75-year-old Californian composer, whose groundbreaking genius feels as fresh today as it first sounded in the 1960s.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an amphetamine-fuelled chicken on rollers? No, it’s the one-time guitarist for Dr Feelgood (during the only period that matters) still doing the moves that made him the main reason to see the band in the mid-1970s. Now bald-headed and bushy-browed but still delivering those electrically charged stares (which he learnt to do during a brief stint as a schoolteacher), he had the air of a benevolent dictator last night as he surveyed the Academy’s crowd for would-be assassins to mock-machine-gun with his trusty Stratocaster.

Rave music, in its many ever-mutating forms, is now more than a generation into its existence. Many, possibly most, of the crowd pushing into Heaven, under Charing Cross station, weren't even born when acid house fully hit the UK in 1988, but none of them are here for some retro experience. It's hard, as a superannuated lover of electronic beats, not to feel cultural vertigo at the fact that what once felt like the most impossibly inhuman of sounds has now become so ubiquitous and so established as to be a kind of folk music. But there it is, as established as the blues or punk rock, and as woven into the fabric of our lives, yet still mutating and still throwing up fresh variants such as the dubstep which Magnetic Man play.

Bounding on stage in a purple version of the man dress pioneered by Mick Jagger at The Stones’s 1969 Hyde Park concert, Ariel Pink looks like a mistranslated version of what a late-Sixties rock star should be. His long hair is dyed blonde. The roots show. His make-up is already smudged, as if applied with mittens. It’s a wonky look, in keeping with his music; a music that sounds like a badly tuned radio playing the hits of the early Eighties, the smooth soul of the Seventies and Sixties bubblegum garage pop all at once. Los Angeles’s most peculiar art rocker doesn’t seem to be playing it straight.

At 7.55pm I was tired and grouchy. By 9.30pm I was a happy man, thanks to Neil Diamond. Say what you like about this 69-year-old singer and songwriter: he may be a cheesy old showbiz pro, but personally I am partial to a bit of cheesy showbiz, and an hour and a half in his company on the final night of this year’s Radio 2 Electric Proms was a real tonic.

With his Thunderbirds eyebrows and his prowling gait, Diamond was an imposing figure whose voice has lost none of its gritty rasp, a quality that lends his songs emotional authenticity. And his rapport with the audience was immaculate – lots of eye contact, expansive gestures at the big moments, a serious little nod of acknowledgment when a familiar song was greeted with a ripple of applause, a wave for the folks in the balcony, another little nod to acknowledge the cheers that came back. A real trouper.

He was a garrulous host, too, flirting with the ladies of a certain age who clustered around the edge of the stage in a sort of middle-aged mosh pit, and talking – as he always seems to, and with not terribly convincing self-deprecation - about how he was “just a kid from Brooklyn” when he became an in-demand songwriter in the mid-1960s.

And he was a crowd-pleaser, delivering exactly what the audience wanted: all the hits, played by his band of old-timers, backed by a string section. In contrast with Elton John, who I’m told made a poor job of balancing old tunes and new material at his Electric Proms show on Thursday night, Diamond didn’t oversell the new stuff, almost apologising as he introduced another song from Dreams, his decent new album of cover versions, among them a surprisingly affecting rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" and a strong, stirring "Ain’t No Sunshine". On neither occasion did he even attempt to sing them as “soul” songs; he sang them as Neil Diamond songs, with that strong, measured, purposeful delivery. Also impressive was a stripped-down version of his own "I'm a Believer". Mercifully we were spared the album’s low point, a version of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s irredeemably sickly "Alone Again (Naturally)".

As has become traditional with the Electric Proms, he also brought on a couple of guests. The first was the perennially perky Lulu, who sang a Neil Diamond song that she had a hit with in 1967, "The Boat That I Row", followed by a sweet and soulful "I’m a Fool For You", finishing each song in a little clinch with Diamond, her sparkly stilettoed heel kicked up behind her. Rather less flirtatious, but packing considerably more musical muscle, was the second guest, Amy Macdonald, who, accompanied only by her own acoustic guitar, wrapped her remarkable tonsils around "Shilo" and "This is The Life". What a voice she has: it seems to belong to another era.

Then Diamond stepped back into the spotlight for the finale: the dark and purposeful "Holly Holy", an exuberant "Cracklin’ Rosie", and the irresistible "Sweet Caroline", the audience waving their arms like sea anemones on a coral reef.

What else can I say? This was good, old-fashioned, uplifting fun, lapped up by the Roundhouse audience, and doubtless appreciated by those listening live on Radio 2 (it’s due for broadcast on TV later in November). And there were times, notably on "Pretty Amazing Grace" and the magnificent "I Am... I Said", when Neil Diamond reminded us that, for all his slick showmanship and smooth patter, he’s a man of substance, too.

• Neil Diamond's Acoustic Christmas reviewed on theartsdesk

Overleaf: Neil Diamond sings "I Am... I Said"