Before they were famous ... New Order revisit the Joy Division songs which John Peel
was first to champion. Photograph: Ian West/PA

The argument for some kind of celebration of the late John Peel's impact on the music scene seems overwhelming, given how many lives and careers he transformed. Last night's Keeping it Peel concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the curtain-raiser for today's inaugural Peel Day of nationwide tribute events, was the first attempt to do so, but has already attracted some criticism for inappropriate mawkishness and nostalgia.

But finding an appropriate tribute to his singular genius is a tough call.

In 1998, Peel curated the South Bank Centre's Meltdown festival. I was only present for one of the gigs, headlined by Liverpool's maverick Clinic at the same venue as last night's gig. It was a fairly characteristic Peel choice, given their steadfast rejection of 'star' trappings by always wearing surgical masks for concerts, and their uncompromising blend of krautrock, Velvet Underground and melodica-driven dub stylings.

It was a memorable performance, but not as memorable as the support act, which came in the form of a brief set from Masonna, a Japanese specialist in "extreme noise". Peel himself appeared to introduce the musician, explaining with evident glee that he had heard that his gigs were often described as "really quite frightening" and warning the audience in the front row to be ready for a serious sonic assault.

So it proved. Masonna, whose releases include the appetising sounding Destructive Microphone, Spectrum Ripper and Shinsen na Clitoris, took the stage with only a microphone and a selection of effects pedals to accompany himself. He proceeded to produce a howling maelstrom of noise, setting one's heart racing whether one liked it or not. As he windmilled his arms and whirled his mop of black hair, it was like watching a guitar hero in full wig-out mode, but for the complete absence of an actual guitar. A friend of mine was trying to pass on some important information just as his performance started, and spent the next the next 15 minutes entirely unable to communicate as the screaming waves of feedback crashed over us. It did border on the painful, but was also kind of great.

I can't say that I rushed out to score a copy of Destructive Microphone the following morning, but it was an experience I'm glad I had. It was also absolutely echt Peel, since it not only introduced me to someone I would never otherwise have heard, but did genuinely expand my idea of what enjoyable music could be.

His radio shows worked the same way. The generation of musicians and fans who listened religiously - often taping the programmes - tuned in to Peel to hear new stuff.

I interviewed Green Gartside from Scritti Politti earlier this year, whose early post-folk, dub-punk experiments were among the musical innovations championed by Peel in the late 70s. He talked about taping the Peel shows as a teenager in Wales, and listening to them over and over, usually finding that the songs he'd hated at the beginning of the week were the ones he was mad about come the weekend.

All of which makes the business of memorialising Peel a bit of a problem: he was good at spotting acts many of us came to love, but well before we thought them loveable. Right to the end he remained ready to play records he could be confident much of his audience would dislike. Some of the bands he championed went on to success they would never otherwise have enjoyed: headling last night's gig, New Order's Bernard Sumner introduced a set of songs by their earlier incarnation Joy Division by saying that without him they would have got "fucking nowhere".

Other bands on his playlist experienced their only exposure to a mass audience on his show before slipping back into obscurity. But precisely because nobody else would play them, he did.

Having been the doyen of hippie freakouts in the 70s, he blew away his mellow audience with both punk and, at a time when mainstream British radio was very wary of black music, with roots reggae. Later, having become the acknowledged godfather of indie, jangling guitar bands would regularly give way to drum'n'bass or happy hardcore. And so on.

Even if his lugubriously laidback delivery suggested a very sedentary man, his tastes never sat still, always alert to the next interesting, extreme noise.

Last night's concert, and today's very diffuse slew of linked events, seems to me to have done about as good a job as possible. There were one or two fairly mega stars: New Order and Super Furry Animals were there, but both played relatively unexpected sets - New Order, for instance, stuck to songs from their earlier incarnation as the influential but much less commercially successful Joy Division. (That Bernard Sumner does not do a very good job of delivering the late Ian Curtis's songs seems beside the point.)

But the evening also saw some very diverse, and pretty obscure turns. Angelic-voiced country folk chanteuse Laura Cantrell was followed by one-man garage blues band Jawbone, himself succeeded by British reggae stalwarts Misty in Roots. Their skanking sweetness was followed by the Masonna-esque aural violence of Venetian Snares, delivering a brutal cocktail of Kraftwerk and what sounded like major roadworks.

And cocking a snook at traditional billing hierarchies, those veteran Jeremiahs, the Fall, were first on the bill, with singer Mark E Smith on sneeringly good form. As in the radio show, the obvious was resisted: Feargal Sharkey was there to introduce New Order, but we were spared an all-star rendition of Teenage Kicks.

But what do you reckon? Could we be paying our respects in a more appropriate fashion?