I don’t really go to gigs any more – it’s the knees, you know, all that bouncing isn’t good for them – but I make an exception if The Breeders are in town because, well. Fuck it, they’re brilliant.

We picked up the new album last week and I’ve spent the last few days cramming – I hate going to gigs without knowing the songs. It’s good. I recommend it. Quite low-key, lower even than Title TK, but with that album’s odd sprinkling of jaunty, punchy pop-rock.

There was a small question mark over whether this would be a full album play-through or all Best Of, a la the 4AD Birthday Celebration gig we saw them play a few years back, but thankfully they wove the new tracks into a set which included greatest hits (Cannonball, still one of the greatest tracks of all time, cropped up along with Divine Hammer, Son of Three and Saints to name a few) and a couple of less well-known tracks. Hell, they started with Tipp City – an Amps song!

The band were, as ever, on form. Kim and Kelly bantered with the audience and, mostly, with each other quite winningly. Charisma and likeability flows from the two of them like smoke from KoKo’s over-zealous smoke machine. The rest of the band were quiet, but tight as anything. We are both particular fans of Jose, the drummer, who is spectacularly great and looks like he should have a much less exotic name, like Graham.

Shuffling out after the world’s longest encore (read: they went out for a fag brak half way through the set), we both agreed that it had been worth it. Somehow I think it always will be, if The Breeders still think it’s worth playing.