And so to the wonderful late 70’s edifice that is the Reading Hexagon - ugly as sin and as hexagonal as absolutely possible. On Thursday night it welcomed a ‘Busy Working Class Hero’ in Ian Brown.

Support was from the marvellously named ‘Glasvegas’  - sounding a lot like Arab Strap with a 60’s backing track, interesting stuff - worth checking some studio stuff I think.

Ten past nine, Ian Brown and band wander on to some of the strings from the new album, but the first track is an absolutely storming version of ‘I wanna be adored’ (my favourite Roses tune), from the first note to the last the Reading crowd rose to their feet…there was storming versions of My Star, Longsight M13, Sweet Fantastic and a great sort of live bootleg with Fools Gold and the man singing ‘The World is Yours’ over the top…nice work. The crowd interaction was superb - getting everyone to boo Oxford ("Yous’ are bad muthafuckers"), and as the crowd got crazier there was a hail of beer and plastic cups…I’m not sure the hexagon see’s many crowds go as crazy as this…

The band was absolutely superb, tight as a drum - and the atmosphere in the Hexagon was superb. We managed to get front row seats in the balcony, but stupid jet lag made me forget to take my camera…so no shots of the great man. He encouraged us all to do the shoulder shake (as at Brixton last year) - and I got a v for victory sign at the end as we applauded and told him he was number one.

Once again - an absolutely superb night out, worth flying 5000 miles back from Seattle to be at, jetlag and all.

I *think* the full setlist was something like this:

• I wanna be Adored
• My star
• Corpses
• Dolphins were Monkeys
• Golden Gaze
• Set My Baby Free
• Lovebug
• Longsight M13
• Sweet Fantastic
• Destiny Or Circumstance
• Time is my everything
• Keep What Ya Got
• Goodbye To The Broken
• FEAR
• I am the Resurrection
• Fools Gold/The World is Yours
• Sister Rose
• On Track
• Street Children