Stereo Total are a European duo. No more really need be said about them – it’s bad electronica pop. Imagine if the White Stripes had been brought up on a diet of Trio, the Sex Pistols and the Eurovision song contest, and had then ditched the whole colour scheme thing. Although their song about Ringo Starr was quite good.

So the most hyped band of 2001 take to the stage on the last night of their UK tour. And they seem to have prepared well for it, singer Julian Casablancas drawls out a greeting with just the right amount of slurring. The Strokes launch into the first few bars of Is This It, but then halfway through everyone actually realises that it is in fact an entirely different song, being minutely different in the chorus. Cunning.

What do you do when you have more thousands of fans than songs to fill a set? Sell out the Brixton Academy for three nights, that’s what. Everyone here knows that the Strokes don’t have the depth of material to match the size of the gig. The Strokes admit they “can’t write songs anywhere but in New York”, and their hectic touring schedule of late has meant they’ve been playing the same 14 songs over and over again for the last few months. But the fans don’t give two short fucks. The tunes are there.

A familiar “chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka” signals The Modern Age, and everyone at the front settles down to a good old mosh. The band (with the exception of Casablancas, weaving in and out of the others) stand stock still throughout the set, concentrating very hard on which note comes next (it’s C, by the way). Bassist Nikolai Fraiture stares off into space through the worst haircut of the millennium; Fab Moretti attempts to hit the drums with his head as well as his drumsticks; Albert Hammond Jr quietly tucks his guitar under his armpit and gets on with it. All eyes are on Nick Valensi, left to strum away on his Gibson in the middle of the stage while Julian stage dives yet again. Then again, it’s pretty hard to take your eyes off young Nick. Mmmm… Wouldn’t mind taking that one home at the end of the night…

The crowd, meanwhile, are enjoying themselves immensely. The Strokes really can do no wrong. Soma and Someday sound a little slower than on the album recording (trying to stretch out the set perhaps), but the lads are note perfect and deliver the goods. Alas, all good things must come to an end. Julian apologises to the crowd (“We’ll come back here after our third album and play for three and a half hours!”) and the band set about demolishing their equipment, safe in the knowledge that it will all be paid for by the tidy packet they’ve made out of the British public.

During the massive crush to the doors on the way out, I hear someone say, “Just one more song, and it would have been perfect”. The Strokes could have played the same songs twice and we wouldn’t have cared.