Apart from their anti-partisan stance, SLF have been strong champions against racism. However, they have never been po-faced posturers: their music is passionate and unpretentious, not particularly subtle but exhilarating when played with full commitment. No frills, but plenty of thrills.

Their best material may have come out of the New Wave in the late '70s/early '80s, but after a five-year break SLF re-formed in 1987, since when they've released five albums with changing line-ups (including at one point ex-The Jam Bruce Foxton on bass), Burns being the only original member left. Without troubling the general public's attention very much, the band has retained its hardcore fan-base - many of whom, with middle-aged beer bellies swelling beneath their SLF T-shirts, were present at the South Bank venue.

After acknowledging the cheers with "This is fucking posh, isn't it?", Burns and his band launch into At the Edge, a song seething with desire to escape from a claustrophobic dead-end urban existence. No Surrender, originally written as a condemnation of the first Gulf War, is now applied to the current war in Iraq, with Burns attacking "both bastard Bushes". Harp is the only song which has an Irish folk feel to it, with its spirited response to anti-Irishness, while Strummerville is a tribute to the Clash frontman. According to Burns, the more soulful Silver Lining is the "closest thing I've written to Motown".

Although starting with these later songs, most of the evening is devoted to playing all 13 tracks from their debut 1979 album Inflammable Material - for the last time, apparently. And it's still fiery stuff. It is mainly about the experience of being raised in an atmosphere of tribal conflict passed down from generations in Northern Ireland - but although the situation has now blessedly been transformed into peace, the songs still stand up strongly.

The band's first single Suspect Device is still an explosive rejection of the bombing campaigns of paramilitary organisations, while State Of Emergency is a powerful indictment of bigotry. Here We Are Nowhere is a one-minute song of teenage frustration about nothing to do on a Friday night. Wasted Life - "I won't be a soldier/I won't take no orders from no one" - asserts individual identity, and Barbed Wire - "Love I met you in No Man's Land/Across the wire we were holding hands" - is a bittersweet love song. Rough Trade is a bitter reaction to being "betrayed" by the eponymous record company who withdrew their promised contract. There's a rousing performance of Johnny Was, an eight-minute Bob Marley song, where punk meets reggae on equal footing. And the plea for a fresh start in Alternative Ulster still comes across urgently.

SLF go off stage after performing one of their best-loved songs - the self-empowering Nobody's Hero - to rapturous applause, but come back for an encore of a cover version of The Specials' Doesn't Make It All Right, featured on SLF's second album. The audience want more but one and a half hours at full throttle is not bad going for a bunch of 50-year-olds.

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