Fun fact: did you know that The George, on Commercial Road, is where the video for "Common People" was shot?

I didn't, but then I don't generally listen to classic rock if I can avoid it.

It's an alternately drizzling and pissing-it-down-with-full-force Friday evening and n0teeth has just entered the pub - shaking ourselves off like a bedraggled mutt - to the sound of Link Wray's Rumble. We're momentarily taken back some 15-odd years when that Death Grips tune came out and every hip London barkeep wanted to demonstrate that they knew where the sample was from. Which we've now done too. Thank you.

It has probably been about that long since I last saw The Lunacy of Flowers, then known as Dave.I.D. I first saw him attempt a gig at the Waiting Room which lasted all of about 1.5 songs before technical issues fucked the entire thing. He hurled a keyboard across the stage and stormed off. It was the most rock n roll thing you were ever likely to see in the dark synth / coldwave scene of Boris Johnson's London, where black-clad non-smilers would usually stand rigidly behind their machines and keep anything suggesting an emotion or even a vibe firmly in check.

No such arbitrary repression of the self for tonight's opening band, who were pure madcap fun from start to finish. Using a Moog for bass is always a clever touch; the rhythm section was completed by a spot-on drummer and complimented by a jazz guitarist, a violinist and a singer with more pep and fizz than a Duracell Bunny on ten Red Bulls and a generous dab of speed. The infectious energy was, to say the least, a bit different from the doom-laden synth-gothery I was mainly here for. I guessed that out of all the names on the bill this lot must be Rabbitfoot, there was just something very rabbity and footlike about them, and sure enough the excitable singer (whose parents were in the audience - how lovely!) confirmed this, one or two songs from the end.

Rabbitfoot in a rare moment when all five members' feet were planted firmly on the stage.

Continuing the theme of giving conventional instrumentation the finger, Fiscal Harm took to the stage armed with flute, alto sax and one of my favourite bits of gear to see in anyone's hands - a headless guitar, just like Cosey's. You know some mad eccentric shit is about to happen when you see one of those. I would bet good money that nobody has ever used one of these cricket bat shaped beauties to play fucking Wonderwall.

They launched into a fantastically seedy, Foetus-influenced noir jazz number which segued into some strange and downright spooky ambience that rambled on slightly too long, so I headed out into the beer garden in search of pizza. The newly chemical-free version of n0teeth occasionally requires solid sustenance while reporting from the frontlines in order to bring you ungrateful urchins the mid-quality music journalism you deserve.

By the time we returned to the dancefloor, the band had picked up the pace a bit and were going hard on the gratuitous sax abuse - which is always a treat to these dissonance-attuned lugs. I'm 99% sure the drummer was unapologetically tootling away on a clarinet at some point as well, although I couldn't quite positively ID the instrument through the dry ice.

Fiscal Harm performing the soundtrack for 1972's most nightmarish swingers party.

I watched the whole of Spike's set and am still none the wiser as to what they were getting at. A heavily 80s influenced sort of John Maus/Meatloaf theatricality, all big synths, sparkly guitars and driving drum machines - punctuated by admittedly very stirring snatches of Andrea Bocelli and a strange mangling of Werewolves of London...perhaps it's the numbing effect of overexposure to all manner of "omg remember the 80s??!" schlock in my late teenage gig-going career, mostly from bands who, like me, were at least five years too young to remember much if anything of that boorish coke-fart of a decade, but I struggled to tell if I was witnessing an ironic send-up of something, and if so, what.

That's not to say Spike's performance lacked conviction or sincerity - the duo are clearly well into what they do, but, aside from a very entertaining Electronic Wind Instrument solo (see, more exotic weaponry onstage!) during their final number, what they do ain't for n0teeth. Also, if I was them I'd have half a mind to tell The George's sound bod that a little bass in the speakers goes a long way and doesn't need to smother all other sound.

To be strictly fair: shredding is shredding, and these two could shred for England.

After transferring to Tallinn a few years ago it's a joy to see The Lunacy of Flowers briefly back from his Baltic adventures and on ripping form to boot. David Hedges, the South Londoner formerly known as Dave.I.D. travels light these days - a mixer and a couple of unidentifiable boxes, plus his trademark beret.

The set begins at a rather slow clip compared to the frantic bursts of the previous acts and for a worrying few minutes the energy levels in the room take a significant dip. However, Mr ID/Flowers soon finds his stride and the old war machine whirrs into life; the whiplash beats crack with sharp precision as the synths cascade like molten metal.

Cutting through all the chaos, as always, are Hedges' soaring pipes - alternately drenched in cynical venom and soulful melancholy. Unfortunately, we soon found the earplugs the George's bar staff kindly provided this tinnitus-afflicted codger redundant as the sound had become disappointingly quiet (fire the soundman! I mean it!), but the vocals ring out pleasingly high and clear in the mix nonetheless.

Under his current moniker, Hedges has taken a more contemplative and less nihilistic turn compared to the morbid ruminations of Dave.I.D. His delivery has become poppier - more Almond than Reznor. So with two skilled ears for production and tunes to match, he's surely only one big industrial pop hit away from breaking into more commercial waters, HEALTH-style.

After a decade and a half of composing powerful, haunting, sometimes abrasive, sometimes startlingly touching electronic music, it's about damn time the Lunacy of Flowers was getting booked in bigger venues than a pub on Commercial Road. If he can pull it off on a rainy Friday evening in Shadwell he can pull it off anywhere.

The Lunacy of Flowers: from Estonia with love.