Scientists should know – Dinosaur Jr bassist Lou Barlow has discovered the fountain of youth.

While frontman and guitarist J Mascis sports a long grey mane, and drummer Murph has lost all his hair, Lou looks exactly the same as he did when he left the trio in 1989.

Perhaps that underlines how young the original line-up was when they parted ways, Lou to set up Sebadoh and J to slowly alienate sidesmen until Dinosaur finally stopped in 1997.

Friday’s show demonstrated what the world lost 20 years ago as the trio deafeningly powered through the seminal classics that paved the way for Nirvana and their 1990s contemporaries.

Towered over by a series of massive Marshall stacks, J’s riffing sounded like a whole army of guitarists, while Lou adopted rock star poses and added vocal harmonies to J’s mumbled lyrics. Unusually the quietest member of the trio was Murph, whose drumming could only just be heard underneath the squalls and throbbing basslines.

Like The Ramones, Dinosaur Jr mainly worked from one template, but when this created anthems like Freakscene or The Wagon it really didn’t matter.

A selection of songs taken from their second reunion album Farm – including the brilliant Plans – showed this more senior Dinosaur certainly isn’t extinct yet.