Asking a cross section of the gathered crowd at the Commodore Ballroom before last night’s Biffy Clyro concert for the origins of the band’s name failed to produce anything approaching a definitive answer. The best response – the only one with at least a possibility of truth – was that a member of the band once owned a Cliff Richard-branded ballpoint pen. Throw in a spoonerism, and this ‘Cliffy Biro’ became the inspiration for arguably the worst band name in pop music history.

Back in the UK Biffy Clyro fill arenas. A cover of one of their songs was the debut single for the winner of a British series of The X Factor. For a post-hardcore band from the small Scottish town of Kilmarnock that was toiling in virtual obscurity for the first ten years of their existence, they have long since crossed into the mainstream.

Which raises the question of why exactly they’re willing to slum it a million miles from home in a mid-size venue in the Pacific Northwest.

The answer, revealed over an inspirational hour and a half alt-rock master class, is that they don’t know how to do anything else. They turn up. They rock. It’s that simple.

There are actually two types of Biffy Clyro song. The first, inevitably stemming from the first half of their career, are tracks like “Who’s Got A Match,” “Glitter and Trauma,” and “Stingin’ Belle,” jagged shards of guitar weirdness with shifting rhythms, punctuated by occasional screams from hirsute front man Simon Neil.

The second, the songs that have propelled Biffy Clyro towards British rock royalty, are readymade arena anthems; big choruses led by bigger, louder guitars. Last night’s selection included “Different People,” “Sounds Like Balloons,” “God and Satan,” and “Black Chandelier.”

The difference between Biffy and, let’s say Coldplay, is that having honed their art in small, sweaty clubs, they’re still incorporating all the weird goodness into the set, playing everything fast, loud and raw. The result, as displayed last night, is an uplifting heaviness; the crowd singing every word back at the stage while simultaneous having its ears drums blown apart with guitar fuzz.

Biffy Clyro’s refusal to soften their art is the key to their excellence. They don’t look like rock stars; a pair of translucently pale twins on bass and drums and a front man hiding his good looks under a mop of hair all strode on stage pre-stripped to the waist ready to perspire. Their stage banter isn’t textbook either. Confessing that they were feeling slightly under the weather, Neil offered an apology for anyone who might have thought they were delivering a subpar performance.

“We’re sorry if we’re bad, and you’re welcome if we’re good.”

Not that the band required forgiveness. Tight as an industrial vice, even when assaulting their instruments, the evening peaked with the tense intro and mighty chorus of “Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies,” the high volume ballad “Many of Horror” and the Sabbath-infused arena anthem “The Captain.”

“Mon the Biff!” the traditional war chant of Biffy Clyro fans, deservedly rang around the Commodore many times last night. Quite simply, a brilliant live rock and roll band.