Despite the critical hammering widely handed out to their current album Red, Guillemots demonstrated on Monday that their live show has lost none of the enthusiasm or edge which won them a Brit nomination last year.
On only the second stop on a 20-something-date UK tour which culminates in August in three stadium dates supporting REM, they hit the ground running.
Pared down to a four-piece, having dispensed with the saxophones, they revealed a tighter focus and a new raw dimension in songs like Kriss Kross and Get Over It - both rapturously received and the latter in particular having the makings of a live cult classic.
Suit-clad frontman Fyfe Dangerfield was in imperious mood, switching fluently between keyboards and guitars - the latter clearly projecting the performance more effectively - and belying his nice-guy image with a surprisingly cruel but thankfully effective put-down of an irritating female heckler.
There was one moment likely to be unique to this gig, when he slowed Annie, Let's Not Wait to a lugubrious slow-motion while replacing an acoustic guitar with a broken string with his Stratocaster. That's live performance for you.
Of the new songs now being played live for the first time, Clarion and Don't Look Down made the transition effectively to sit alongside favourites like Made-Up Love Song and Through the Windowpane, with Trains to Brazil and Sao Paolo teasingly withheld for the encore.
Despite some early anxieties about this particular gig, an audience did indeed turn up to pretty well fill the Wulfrun, and seemed to leave impressed. The Guillemots tour comes to the Kasbah in Coventry on June 2.
Without ever rivalling Guillemots' range, opening band Royworld made a positive impression with their punchy indie rock and some songs that sounded as though they could be interesting if you heard them in a clearer mix. They have a debut album out next month and a surprisingly plush video for their single Dust on YouTube.
