It's 20 years or so from the heady, politicised days of Rock Against Racism, but it seems that multi-racial, London-based Asian Dub Foundation remember it as if were yesterday. Yet, unlike Blondie - performing yards away at the Olympia - this crowd refused to play the nostalgia ticket.

Adapting their potent mixture of punk, hip-hop, rap, dub, reggae and bhangra to a throbbing, rhythmic contemporary sound, Asian Dub Foundation were able to negotiate a path from the past to the present without veering into musical territory that might have tripped them up. Songs such as Black/White and Will The Real Great Britain Please Step Forward? may have a loose melting pot feel to them - The Police, The Clash, and The Specials' roughshod ska/reggae predominates - but the overall sense one receives is of a forceful, focused and thoughtful band carrying a torch for somewhat more communal times.

Asian Dub Foundation make a cool but not calculating noise. They're clever, too - rarely does a song go by without some cute melodic guitar lines filtering through the heavy dub pulse. The band say they are invested by the "spirit of the community." The audience, invested by spirits of a different kind, would no doubt have agreed.