Oh boy, what a treat. I was broadly expecting this to be just Brett Anderson, Richard Oakes, and Neil Codling, with some hastily thrown together acoustic arrangements of the big hits. Not so! The whole band are here, with Mat Osman on acoustic bass (and sat down, so minimal slinking, sadly), and Simon Gilbert on various bits of percussion (and occasionally just heading off stage for spells). They’ve clearly put so much thought and prepration into this (as evidenced by, after Codling and Oakes nail a parallel twiddly riff in one song, Osman going “yes!” under his breath), with detailed arrangements of a lot of deep cuts. I am thrilled to get For The Strangers and Tightrope (Anderson on the latter: “that’s how we should have done it, rather than turning it into Pantomime Horse). There’s a song from every album (“even the shit one”), and they can’t help but leave with an encore of Trash - well, they’ve earnt it. A lot of fun watching Brett Anderson not know quite what to do with himself sans mic and sweat. The nutjobs stay seated, thank god, and are broadly respectful of the signs asking them not to take photos or video. A very, very special gig.