Jane's Addiction, Brighton Dome

When they emerged in the late Eighties, the Los Angeles art rockers Jane's Addiction were a glorious anomaly in a musical landscape dominated by Spandex-wearing rockers of the non-ironic variety (yes, I do mean Motley Crue). Their frontman Perry Farrell came with a charisma and flamboyance that was conspicuously absent among his contemporaries while their last album, 1991's Ritual De Lo Habitual almost single-handedly reinvented alternative rock.

Twelve years on from their heroin-addled demise, Jane's Addiction have finally re-grouped. If you imagined that, minus the drugs and well on their way to middle age, Farrell and co might have grown up you can think again.

Dave Navarro, the guitarist who spent part of the band's prolonged sabbatical playing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, strides on stage like the god of rock he clearly believes he is - cigarette dangling from his lower lip, a black goatee beard stretching down to his chest. It only takes him four songs to take his shirt off. Then there's Farrell, bouncing and mincing his way about the stage with no concession to age or dignity. It's only now that it dawns on you. It wasn't the drugs that made him act like a crazy man; he is, in fact, truly nuts. Tonight he gives a lengthy monologue on the merits of Britney Spears' behind and, as an introduction to "True Nature", a complicated metaphor involving glazed doughnuts.

You might argue that music hasn't come on much since Jane's Addiction called it a day. Inrock terms, it has gone into reverse. But that doesn't stop Farrell and co from sometimes sounding like old-timers. Their trademark sound, an amalgam of punk and freaky funk, overlaid by Farrell's otherworldly wail, is still present though it lacks the freshness and belligerence of 12 years ago.

That said, there's a pleasing wave of nostalgia in hearing that raucous ode to shoplifting "Been Caught Stealing", the sweetly tender "Jane Says" and the hyperactive "Ain't No Right". One or two of the songs from their comeback album Strays even stand up against the old classics, most notably "True Nature", a veiled critique of US interventionism. Given the current appetite for off-the-wall American rock, Jane's Addiction might find a new generation of listeners. Older fans, however, might be better off sticking with the memories.