A sweaty pasty face, mini-barrel belly and compulsive smoker; that doesn’t conjure images of rock deities (shouldn’t it be dieties) to me. But regardless of these superficialities, Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers performed the greatest gig of my life so far. The last night of the UK tour saw them in great spirits judging by the huge grins, shared smiles and status quo rocking poses.

Its not a large venue but the crowd were rapt and noisily appreciative and we (me and Mikael) were about 5 metres from Dulli. 5 metres from one of my favourite vocalists of all time; the man who wrote Gentlemen.Their first set of material from Blackberry Belle and their debut lost none of their more tender moments live, the band were in no rush to get home as Dulli bantered, smoked and quoted through the musical intermissions.

They played it cool as fuck, smoking perpetually and looking like a ragtag bunch of musical misfits; the drummer in silver DMs, sparkly shirt, overcoat and necktie scarf thing, Dulli in regualtion smart black, leag guitarist (Todd?) in pink gingham shirt, keys player in obscure band T-shirt and the bass player (who was fantastically on point all night) in paint splattered jeans and an anti fascist T-shirt.

Their first encore Medley was in turns poignantly dark and intentionaly hilarious (how could the lined up, open legged “Layla” moment be so cool) with Dulli on the keys doing a brief solo turn. Their “Hey Ya!” encore was word perfect, reinventing a catchy pop song into a furiously fun and raw singalong punk/soul anthem which they have to record soon! Dulli has a knack for covering/rebirthing rnb (old and nu) songs with the Whigs and this is one of his finest.

How amazing is it to see a man you consider a legend bring out a setlist for their second encore! Last song “Faded” was a surprise, as Lisa Oliver’s earlier Turntable comment hadn’t mentioned their final song was the Whigs’ greatest moment. Grown men smiled from ear to ear and sang along under their breaths awed.