The all-important will-he-won't-he question appeared to be answered as Frank Black bounded on stage with a wave and struck up the chugging chords to Pixies' classic Cactus.

Dressed in a black T-shirt and black slacks, sweat beading on his forehead before he had even sung a note, it was an answer to our prayers.

As the dark anthem of obsession from Pixies' debut album Surfer Rosa faded, the crowd erupted.

It was immediately followed by the twisted four-bar blues of Nadine from the Catholics' new release Show Me Your Tears.

His holler may have lost some of its strangled intensity and the tunes become more laid-back but this collision of old and new hammered home how little the Frank Black formula has altered in the intervening 15 years. Thank God.

A trawl through more recent material - modern takes on jazz, blues, country and UFOs - was studded with a speaker-wrecking version of Caribou before the set closed with a glorious version of Veloria from Bossanova.

Black sounds like a man who has finally come to terms with his past. That reunion looks to be only a signature away.