Sonic Youth are turning into The Ramones of experimental rock. Now in their 50s, apart from their drummer, who is a sprightly 47, the New Yorkers plough on without regard to fashion or the sniggers directed at their name. Age hasn’t withered them – witness their excellent last album The Eternal – but nor has it encouraged them to shake things up overmuch.

Punky vocals: Kim Gordon

This date was held under the aegis of the annual Q awards ceremony, organised by the music magazine Q. The band, who received a lifetime achievement prize on Monday, were in business-like form. There was not much between-song talk. “I’d like to thank you all for standing up to the BNF goons,” said singer-guitarist Thurston Moore in a rare aside, showing his age by muddling the National Front with the British National Party.

The set drew heavily on The Eternal, with a sprinkling of tracks thrown in from earlier stages of their almost-30-year history. The new songs were punchy. “Calming the Snake”, which opened with Moore performing a whirling power chord on his guitar, was powered by metronomic drums, coiled riffs and punky vocals, delivered abrasively by Kim Gordon, Moore’s co-vocalist and wife. “Walkin Blue”, sung by another of the band’s singer-guitarists, Lee Ranaldo, brought out the psychedelic, dreamier side of the band’s personality. “Antenna” began with an eerie gust of noise from Ranaldo’s guitar but then settled into a catchy, chugging rocker.

Sonic Youth’s background lies in the arty downtown Manhattan bohemia of Velvet Underground, Glenn Branca and early-1980s “no wave” noise-rock. Whereas the current generation of New York indie darlings such as Animal Collective and TV on the Radio use multiple instruments and are influenced by styles of music from across the spectrum, the Youth stick with the tried and tested formula of drums and guitars – the latter detuned and turned into howling monsters of feedback, as if stretching rock’s traditional language to breaking point. The show had fewer meandering guitar odysseys than they tend to play, and there was at times a perfunctory air surrounding the performance, but it remained an enjoyable demonstration of an unchanging brand of experimentalism.