Goldfrapp, Dome, Brighton

What you do get, if you go to a Goldfrapp concert, is one metallic-robed Judas Iscariot on keytar, gee-tar and violin, one Babylon 5 baddie on drums, one stray Scissor Sister on bass, one female Ziggy on keys... and - bear with me here, I'm not making this up - four dancing werewolves in bikinis, four sultry Silver Surfers, four Venusian brides and four mirror-headed dressage ponies, whose swishing tails do strange things to this writer's psycho-libido - which in turn summons unsettling memories of that Channel 4 documentary on zoophilia, so I'm slightly relieved when they canter away. The choreography is worth the admission alone: sci-fi meets fairytale, Brothers Grimm in outer space.

Most important of all, what you get if you go to a Goldfrapp concert is the incomparable Alison herself. Well, when I say "incomparable", I tell a lie, because I shall shortly proceed to compare her to numerous other people, because that somewhat inadequate method is one of the few ways in which a humble journalist can possibly hint at what she's like.

Stood there in silver spike heels, caught in the crossfire hurricane of two industrial-strength steel fans, her pink batwing cape billowing in the breeze and her improbable tumble of goldilocks (I initially thought it must be a wig) flying freely and randomly like Medusa snakes in zero gravity, Alison Goldfrapp is one of the few stars whose sheer presence can send shivers down the spine.

Alison is no spring chicken. She's no chicken at all. It takes balls to be this much of a woman. And balls come with age. Which helps. In addition to her fearlessness, it also helps that at some stage in her life she's clearly taken the time to become really good at proper, operatic, properatic singing and then, in a flash of genius, decided to apply it to filthy electro-glam. There's no way that a band like Goldfrapp could have sprung from the imaginations of 19-year-olds.

Alison Goldfrapp is perhaps the only female artist since the semi-retirement of Sioux and the disappearance of Bush (Kate thereof, who is, as you'll be aware, poised to un-disappear, but that's another story) to operate on the interface between the realms of dreams and consciousness, between fable and fact, in a way that is analogous to Dalinian Surrealism in art, and Magic Realism in literature.

And make no mistake: she belongs in the company of those names, and also those of David Bowie and Sparks, who - with similar effortlessness - balanced art and commerce in the 1970s.

Twas not ever thus. For a while - the whole of the Felt Mountain campaign, in fact - it appeared that Goldfrapp might be something of a coffee-table curio, their Morricone-meets-Wagner ethereal pomp popular with aesthetes of a certain vintage, but destined never to cross over to The Kids.

The 'Frapp really struck gold by releasing a succession of singles - "Train", "Strict Machine", "Ooh La La" - which sounded like "The Crunch" by The Rah Band welded to the theme music from Star Trek (original Sixties incarnation), accompanied by videos which, unless my memory is playing tricks, featured Alison writhing around dressed as a husky. It's a sound - if not a look - which was blatantly ripped off by Rachel Stevens on "Some Girls" and, in the case of "Ooh La La", snapped up by a mobile-phone ad before it was even in the shops.

Appropriating the strut and stomp of Bacofoil-shouldered glitter rock (importantly, not rehabilitating, because its contraband status is part of the appeal) is, ever since the downfall of The Leader of The Gang, provocative intrinsically, part of Goldfrapp's illicit fetishism of wrongness (see also that "fascist bay-bee..." refrain in "Utopia"). The man who must take just as much credit for this is Alison's collaborator Will Gregory, who chooses to stand side-stage nowadays, controlling things unseen, like the Wizard of Oz.

The other thing that Alison Goldfrapp fetishises is herself. The imagery and iconography of a Goldfrapp concert - those heels, those stances, those dances - are all about placing her own gender on a pedestal, worshipping the power of the female form in a way which I can only compare to venerable males, who work in other spheres entirely: photographers such as Helmut Newton, cineastes such as Fellini, Buñuel and Vadim. Notice those nationalities: German, Italian, Spanish, French - Goldfrapp are a profoundly European band.

The glamour of Goldfrapp's exaggerated femininity has struck a chord with a certain element of the Brighton crowd: I find myself admiring one lookalike, with blonde candyfloss hair, air hostess cap perched to one side... until I realise it's a feller... at which point my admiration only increases. Yet another thing you won't find at the average singer-songwriter gig.

Intrepid, incredible, inspirational.

s.price@independent.co.uk