Siouxsie, Electric Ballroom, London

Last October, the BBC launched its Electric Proms as a pop and rock equivalent of the traditional Proms, with some fanfare. The gigs included the live debut of Damon Albarn's The Good, The Bad and The Queen project, and an audacious show featuring the odd pairing of Amy Winehouse and Paul Weller.

This year's Electric Proms profess to be following the same template of unexpected juxtapositions, but in truth mind-boggling collaborations are thin on the ground.

Last night's curtain-raiser was billed as the John Peel Night and certainly had the merit of being true to the DJ's eclectic spirit. Opening band Radio Luxembourg are Aberystwyth tyros who won a competition to play this show and their spindly, vaguely psychedelic indie rock, pitched at some shifting point between Super Furry Animals and the Libertines, typified the many such artists championed by Peel over the years.

Siouxsie and the Banshees were recording Peel sessions as long ago as 1977 but age has not withered the imperious, deliciously haughty queen of portentous goth-pop. Composed beneath her sculpted explosion of black hair, the singer remains impressively trim and lithe at 50.

Thirty years into her career, Siouxsie's recent album Mantaray is, surprisingly, her debut solo release. It sounds, as ever, like superior art-punk, but was released after a difficult period that saw the implosion of her two bands, the Banshees and the Creatures, plus a divorce from Budgie, her partner and the drummer in both bands.

Despite the strength of the new material, she opened with Dear Prudence, the scathing yet respectful Beatles cover from 1987 album Through The Looking Glass. This was eclipsed by early Banshees singles Arabian Nights and Hong Kong Garden, two shards of sheer pop brilliance that emphasise they were arguably the only band to import glamour into punk's rudimentary aesthetic. She drew the remainder of the set from Mantaray, and it is a tribute to the record that there was no notable drop in quality or thrill quotient. Drone Zone dripped the scorn for suburban conformity, always a Siouxsie staple, but the stand-outs were Loveless and Into A Swan, a magnificent slice of magic realism to rival the Banshees' finest moments.

· Electric Proms are at various venues around Camden Town until Sunday.