Divine Comedy (The), 21st Oct

I choose Duck with Black Bean Sauce from Beijing Bistro on Park Street. It has been quite a few years since I visited my old student union building and I guess I need fortification. Perhaps I am just hungry. By the time we find somewhere to park near the Union I'm ready to eat again anyway.

First off, I have to confess to never hearing Regeneration, the album that sent The Divine Comedy into critic hell. I didn't like the idea (yes I probably did just believe the hype) that Neil Hannon had decided he wanted to be Taken Seriously and was worried it would be one of those Bereft Of New Ideas albums. I haven't heard Absent Friends either but the other week I got hold of Victory for the Comic Muse and the Nyman-esque mini-soap operas have sucked me back in.

Tonight he plays with a full band, and the Anson Room is pretty packed out. We sneak in through a side door and have a fairly good view of proceedings. There are a lot of old favourites, starting with Alphie and including Woodshed, When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe and quite a few songs I didn't recognize but it is all grandiose and bourgeious and fantastic.

Hecklers are dispatched without fuss, Hannon gets into trouble for smoking during Bad Ambassador that song doesn't work without a cigarette in my hand and his silky tenor warbles into the night, weaving stories of love, life treachery and betrayal, or something. In any case, it's both a musical adventure and a hark back to my student days when I used to sing Divine Comedy songs to warm up for singing lessons.

At one point an enormous man walks through the crowd, trampling short people underfoot, as if there were no-one else actually in the room. We all have a jolly laugh about it, shaking our fists at his back, that sort of thing. He doesn't even come and stand right in front of me as usually happens when tall people sense a Dash in the room. It's that sort of night. Sadly it comes to an end too soon and I wail, They can't stop yet, they haven't done National Express!

So they do. Just for me.