It's not so unusual for a band to acknowledge the love in the room by linking hands and taking a bow. But when Hot Chip did so, on the penultimate show of a long British tour, they had only been on stage for a few seconds. On paper, it may have seemed like the sort of cocksure self-assurance more commonly associated with proletarian pop icons such as Oasis or the Enemy. More likely, this was another glimpse of the whimsical style that, on the synth-prodding collective's MySpace site, sees them describe themselves as practitioners of “minimalist/Celtic/Chinese” pop.

If spirits were high, it was hardly surprising. Thanks to the hits yielded by this year's third album, Made in the Dark, in 2008 the Putney quintet (expanded here to a seven-piece) have transformed into bona fide pop stars. And, watching them go about their business, you were moved to realise all over again what odd pop stars these musicians make. With the smart-casual dress mode of an affable careers officer, the co-frontman Joe Goddard has made an unlikely virtue of the fact that - on One Pure Thought and Bendable Poseable - he also raps like an affable careers officer.

In his default position, to the left of Goddard, was Hot Chip's “proper” singer Alexis Taylor. Amid an incongruously sophisticated display of lasers, the wavering tones of the diminutive, bespectacled Taylor did little to defy the image that trails Hot Chip: that of middle-class Englishmen who live in mortal fear of trying and failing to emote convincingly.

However, if Hot Chip have always struggled to let rip with unalloyed euphoria, they have no such problems making their instruments do that for them. Keyboards did what keyboards normally do on their records - demonically going about their business in much the same way as toys that come to life the moment their owners go to bed.

However, on Over and Over it was the pleasingly rough handiwork of the guitarist Al Doyle and the drummer Leo Taylor that demanded a physical response that spilt into abandon when a dozen-odd giant balloons heralded an extended Ready for the Floor. At which point it became abundantly clear that, although Hot Chip might not be terribly adept at expressing unalloyed euphoria, eliciting it is another matter entirely.

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