The last time Mark Linkous graced the Concorde 2, on a similarly balmy summer night two years ago, it was to promote his group's new album It's A Wonderful Life.

A hushed and intense virtuoso performance, Linkous wove his softly-spoken porch songs complete with violin, sax and glockenspiel before a rapt and reverent audience.

His return to the UK, for a tour which includes dates with Rustinman and REM, is a far more stripped-down affair with the intimate feel of a fanclub-only gig. All but three of the dozen or so songs in the 70-minute set were taken from the 1995 debut album Vivadixie - a ground-breaking sprawl of a record which put the alt into alt.country.

Gone were the racks of instruments and dried flowers. Thom Yorke's mate Linkous, his eyes hidden beneath the brim of a baseball cap, was accompanied on stage by a drummer, organist and some spooky vocal effects.

It is testimony to the enduring appeal of this fuzzy melancholia, now almost ten years old, that most of the audience knew every single word. And testimony to the audience that, until the anthemic closer Homecoming Queen, they allowed Linkous to sing it unaccompanied.