When the York quintet took to the stage after an excellent supporting set from Cast and then Elmer Bernstein's theme to The Magnificent seven, these precursors would suggest that a very tightly packed O2 Academy in Glasgow would be entertained by both classic and nostalgic music and tonight Shed Seven wouldn't disappoint.  

Despite having released their brand new fifth studio album Instant Pleasures only less than a month earlier, only four tracks from this would make it into the epic seventeen track setlist spanning a relentless ninety minutes. The opener was one such song. It seems the norm that writers now pen tracks with the idea of it being an opener in mind and the first song from the new album was the first song of tonight, 'Room in my House'. 

Rick Witter and Paul Banks didn't have to reinvent the wheel to come up with something new, the main ingredients of Shed Seven's success were Witters knack for producing anthemic rousing choruses and Bank's ability to create a dirty blues lick that can hold you from start to finish. 

With only half of the crowd joining in the oooh-oh's that make 'Room in my House' as anthemic as it is, it creates the building blocks for the crowd to quickly get on side as the crunching guitar intro of 'Speakeasy' along with a very memorable performance of 'Where Have You Been Tonight?' are next up. 

Witter interacts with the crowd with funny anecdotes of the nineties, singling out a boo boy after a drum malfunction and social media tweets. He dedicates 'High Hopes' to a couple in the crowd who had it as their wedding song. Followed by the second song taken from Instant Pleasures, the boil begins to simmer until 'Dolphin' is given an extension with Banks recreating John Squire's outro to 'I am the Resurrection' which whips the place into a frenzy. 

'Ocean Pie', 'On Standby' and 'Devil in Your Shoes' act as the three songs that would have been hard to leave from the set, why it was probably so large, and also as a breather for Witter before what would turn out to be a grandstand eight song finish. 

The second half of the setlist begins with 'She Left me on Friday' and the Academy echoed with 2,500 sets of vocal chords and Rick Witter's were as precise and punchier as ever and even better on 'Better Man', one of the stand out tracks from Instant Pleasures. 

If singing weren't enough for the Shedecember's they also had their chance to dance as 'Disco Down' moves them into full swing, the last song wrote by Paul Banks before he decided that he had enough 17 years ago. His relentless guitar appreggios keep tempo with the mood on 'Bully Boy' and a sea of 5000 arms joining the chanting. 

Their only top ten hit in fifteen attempts from their Mark 1 era 'Going for Gold' concludes the pre-encore routine with Witter telling the crowd that he is "...going to stand over in the corner before returning to stand back here". 

The fourth song from Instant Pleasures, 'It's Not Easy' complete with their brass section would be a natural closer to any gig except 'Getting Better' and 'Chasing Rainbows' were still to be worshipped by an eagerly awaiting crowd to close out what is arguably and widely acknowledged as one of the best gigs of 2017 by a British rock band. 

Whilst band and crowd performance eventually stole the day, we still left wondering why their latest single 'Nothing to Live Down' didn't make an appearance, but with a setlist so vast in its ability to induce passion and emotion, this may be more greed than critique.

Tonight the Hartnolls took to the stage with a set-up that looked positively minimal when compared to the industrial-scale rigs of previous years. From the outset it was clear that the visual effects had not undergone similar reduction. Displays across the top and bottom of the stage created the illusion of a letterbox, through which the crowd could see the bobbing head-lights of ambient techno’s most accomplished duo.

Opening track, ‘Lush 3-1’ from 1993’s “brown” album, heralded a set that would remain primarily within the pair’s earlier works, but all reworked magnificently to sound as fresh and exciting as they did nearly 25 years ago. In some cases I had to wait for a good few bars before realising which tune was being played. For two hours, including encore, the set-list rarely ventured beyond 1996, keeping well away from the early 2000s and the much-maligned The Altogether. 

It was great to hear a couple of tracks from 2012’s Wonky, the title track off that album and particularly the encore-closing ‘Where Is It Going?’ Just to ensure the entire evening wasn’t a retrospective, two tunes had their live debuts; ‘Phuk’ and ‘Tiny Foldable Cities’, both proving that there is still plenty of cracking material in the locker. 

Given that the brothers have been producing the finest electronic dance music since 1987, their passion has not waned, even when playing classic tracks like ‘Belfast’, ‘Chime’ and ‘Halcyon’, which they could be forgiven for delivering by rote, but instead they give thumping renditions of these old favourites, bouncing around behind their kit as if they were playing a rave inside the M25, circa 1989.

 The stand-out performance of the night had to be a new mix of ‘Satan’, which was delivered with a face-melting intensity that had everyone in the place going mental. There are rumours of a tour next year and, on the strength of this latest outing I say, bring it on.

Originally planned for May 2017, Jamiroquai’s two dates at the O2 Arena in London had to be postponed due to a back injury picked up by Jay Kay, the frontman, who certainly uses a great deal of energy onstage. As my friend and fellow gig-goer commented, one “can see why they cancelled”, as the show would not be the same with this vocalist sitting down. Besides his dancing and spinning, the singer (as well as others in the band) also demonstrated an impressive ability to imitate his recordings extremely well in a live setting, which is harder than it sounds, especially when you’re as good a performer as this vocalist, who is often reminiscent of Stevie Wonder but arguably as good at singing as the American soul man, if not better.

‘Little L’, ‘Space Cowboy’, ‘Runaway’, ‘Love Foolosophy’ and other pop hits flew by in quick succession, as well as the underrated hard funk-rock workout ‘The Kids’. The band, with instrumentalists who were also impressive, particularly on bass and keys, ended with ‘Virtual Insanity’, but not before playing several songs taken from their 2017 album, Automaton. ‘Seven Days In Sunny June’ from Dynamite was also present (apparently performed for the first time this tour according to setlist.fm) along with a classic from the same album, ‘(Don’t) Give Hate A Chance’. Another highlight was ‘Canned Heat’ which was, if one remembers correctly, mixed with extracts from Emergency On Planet Earth’s ten-minute epic, ‘Revolution 1993’.

Although often euphoric and, overall, great, the gig was not perfect. The material from Automaton was often, if not always, poorer than the older songs despite its futuristic sheen. It was not as interesting and not just because the prior material was more familiar. Also, one might lament the absence of such career highpoints as ‘Feels Just Like It Should’, ‘Stillness in Time’ and ‘Deeper Underground’. To be fair, however, the new material at the beginning of proceedings may have sounded bad because of possible sound problems rather than a deficiency in either the band or the songs themselves.

Proving to be so good that twice I left my wheelchair and started dancing for a few seconds, Jamiroquai’s concert was worth the financial cost and the wait. It seems like all performers achieved great things in general, both individually and as a collective. Despite some flaws, these results still deserve commendation.

Here's the video for the band's new single too:-

Returning after a year off, Wakefield’s Long Division (June 1-3 2018) will be a bit of a different beast from what we’ve seen in the past. Musos’ Guide put a few questions to Festival Director Dean Freeman to find out about the event’s plans for expansion.

MG: So Dean, from the looks of the emails we’ve been getting in and also Long Division’s Twitter feed (@Long_Division_), you’ve happily plugged the funding gap which saw you have to crowdfund part of the 2016 festival. The monies for that seemed to roll in satisfactorily but still, it must be nice to have no recourse to that for 2018?

DF: Getting over £7500 from the 2016 Crowdfunder was unreal and the positivity it created was amazing. People have said, why not do that again? But I think it worked because it was genuine and it was a one-off. It's like, you're more than happy to shout a pint for a mate if they are skint, but if they always come out with no money, you start to question why they bother coming out. Still, that idea that some people want to be more involved than just regular punters has fed into our new ticketing system, so we didn't throw the whole thing out.

MG: Having Wakefield BID (Business Improvement District) committing to Long Division shows a pleasing belief in what the festival can do for the city in a wider sense. It must be refreshing to deal with such an entity when it has a progressive outlook in terms of promoting the city etc.

DF: Refreshing is definitely the word. And it fits with our ideals too. For those who haven't come across a BID before, the basic outline is that all the rate paying businesses in a geographical area pay a small annual levy, and then those businesses decide how it is spent. Usually the goal is to drive footfall and spend. I'd been collecting these stats for years about how Long Division audiences spend their money, where they go etc. (thank you anyone who ever filled out our surveys!) and was able to show the festival was bringing in around £100,000 a year. That's secondary spend, after the tickets have been bought. Wakefield BID represents over 400 businesses and with the best will in the world, I can't get round all of them and sell this idea. But the Board of BID got it and have got right behind it, so it's pretty exciting.

MG: With the funding from the BID you’ve been able to make the festival 90% free. Tell us about the expanded plans for what that covers. “Poets in chip shops” was an option that jumped out at me from one of your recent emails.

DF: The idea I went to BID with was: if Long Division was bringing in £100,000 from that many people ... what if we could double the audience by making it free to attend for the majority? I think that's an interesting model for a festival, where it can be hard to connect up cultural and business sectors. 

But the thing that actually excites me most is how it opens up venues and spaces. Obviously with a ticket, the venues need to be exclusive and as a lot of cool spaces in Wakefield are small bars or shops, it never really balanced. Now we can literally use anywhere in the city centre, indoor or outdoor, cultural or not. There will be a very public stage on the precinct, there are interesting spaces around the shopping centres and yes, I'd love to see poets in chip shops and lots of little surprise shows. Although most people attending will have their tickets upfront, I just love the thought of someone out doing their Saturday shopping and coming across something weird and unexpected. 

MG: To take in the bigger acts of the weekend there’s a three-tier pricing structure in place, with £20, £50 & £100 options – how do the benefits of each of those break down?

DF: The 'Pioneer' ticket (currently £20 as an Early Bird) is the traditional Long Division ticket. You get to see the headliners (basically that extra 10%) as well as any of the free stuff you want. The £50 and £100 tickets are the Crowdfunder influenced ones. They have everything the Pioneer has but with the Curator you can get involved in directing the future of the festival, including helping with booking the festival and taking over our Official Playlist. And with the Investor ticket, all the money above the regular ticket price goes directly to our Seed Fund Programme which will commission local artists to create new work for the festival. That might be paying that Poet in the Chip Shop or a band to write an EP based around "The Future Of Wakefield Culture" - anything really. You'll be a named supporter of that and it will make a big and direct difference to artists. 

MG: The last time Musos’ Guide was able to cover Long Division was the year that the Union Works was reopened. The year before was great in terms of venues already but that performance space brought a good centrality to the proceedings as well as excellent acoustics. What can punters expect in terms of larger venues next summer? Any option to tie in with The Hepworth?

DF: Our main venues will be Wakefield Cathedral, Warehouse 23 and Wakefield Town Hall (Unity Works closed a couple of months back). We haven't used Wakefield Cathedral since 2011 - it's a stunning place. Warehouse 23 has hosted the likes of The Fall (a very busy and sweaty show - MG) and Ghostpoet for us in the past. And the Town Hall was last used in 2012 (I think) so it's a nice group of major venues that show Wakefield off well. There will be other elements to the Pioneer venues too which we can't reveal yet. 

Venues has always been tough but interesting for us. Of the 25+ we've used since 2011, 10 have since closed. But also 6 of them opened in that time too. So very little is permanent.  In 2018 there might be around 8 venues we've never used before and that, combined with our pledge that 90% of the artists will never have performed at Long Division before will hopefully provide something fresh and exciting. It's certainly going to be an adventure. 

Many thanks to Dean for taking the time to respond to us & we'll aim to keep you abreast of festival updates as they appear. With luck you'll end up looking forward to it as much as us &, in case you missed it the first time, the event site can be reached here.