After a distinctly under-whelming show at the Concorde 2 a few months ago, the floppy-haired former Pavement frontman lolloped back into town to have another bash.

Malkmus was introduced by the dulcet tones of John Peel (weirdly dressed head-to-foot in red): "Many years ago David Gedge of Cinerama gave me an EP by Pavement because he thought I'd like it - and I did. Very much. It's an honour to welcome someone with a genuine pedigree."

With that, the uber-college-rock geek bounded on stage and struck up the first in a clutch of off-kilter prog-punk noodlings.

Malkmus guided his versatile Jicks all the way from chirpy pop and acoustic strumming to caverns of psychedelic guitars and doomy acid blues.

He won points for having done his homework: "This one goes out to Patrick Hamilton, he wrote the West Pier - a cruel little book about Brighton," he said before locking into the dark anthem Fantasies.

But calls for tunes from Pavement's back-catalogue were met with a resolute "I'm better than that," before the final tune which morphed weirdly into something like Joy Division's Transmission.

With The Jicks on top form and Malkmus looking happier than he ever did in the death throes of Pavement, that was a minor disappointment in a fantastic return to form