The Streets, O2 Academy

Well, he certainly started with a bang. The gig hit the ground running, quite literally in the case of dreadlocked co-vocalist Kevin Mark Trail, who spent almost the entire 90 minutes on stage hurtling around, while the star of the night preferred to bounce on the spot like a kangaroo or perch on the monitor leading the audience singalongs.

With an extremely good valedictory album, Computers and Blues, and a fantastic back catalogue there was no time to be wasted. Skinner might have been caught up and arguably overtaken by the likes of Tinie, Tinchy and Plan B, but early in the set his 2002 single "Let's Push Things Forward" still sounded like a contemporary slice of propulsive urban soul.

While the incessant slam of the beats plus guest co-vocalist Rob Harvey from The Music and a tight band fleshing out the sound things moved at an incredible lick, Skinner span glorious yarns on stage. A decade on from his start he is still a bit of a soppy old romantic. On the recent track "OMG" he bemoaned his girlfriend changing her Facebook status to "in a relationship" until his eyes lit up when he realised she was in a relationship with him.

It was during "OMG" that the 32-year-old went crowd-surfing, pleading with his audience to be gentle. His new album explores the fact that while we are more connected than ever through technology, we are less connected too, yet in a live context Skinner certainly knows how to connect. Quite literally, when someone grabbed his foot and he kicked them, before apologising once back on terra firma and handing them some conciliatory lager.

Following recent gigs by others in London where the sound has been decidedly lumpy, Skinner's clever, tongue-twisting lyrics – “Frank Bruno’s nose has seen too many blows”, on break-up classic "We Can Never Be Friends" – were clear as a bell, albeit a very loud bell that left your eardrums rattling. Like the Beastie Boys at their most boisterous, there is a hint of a heavy-metal tendency to Skinner's recent work, explicitly on "Going Through Hell" which cranked up the amps to 12 and threatened to bring down the balconies.

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Watch The Streets perform "Dry Your Eyes"

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