SHOULD you leave your past in the past, fading like the old music mags, posters and ticket stubs long consigned to the attic? Or should you see your formative favourites just once more, now that you and they have passed 50?

Two such opportunities presented themselves in Leeds, first The Jesus And Mary Chain re-linking to revisit their incendiary debut album, the feedback scree of 1985's Psychocandy, at the O2 Academy, where William Reid's guitar had more spark than an out-of-sorts brother Jim on muffled vocals. "Game over," said the last video graphic. It felt like a defeat, failing to recapture glory days in the manner and manor of Leeds United.

Next came An Evening With Ian McCulloch, lead lip of Liverpool's swaggering psychedelia romantics Echo And The Bunnymen. Alas, his fractious, fractured performance in the venerable City Varieties will be doing the rounds as one of those "You should have been there" gigs, but not in a good way.

It comes as no surprise to learn that, by Monday morning, the complaints from last Friday night were piling up for the music hall management to address. Bad language. Bad attitude. Failing to complete songs. The list went on. Good old days? Bad old night, more like.

McCulloch was in a truculent, cussed mood from the off, wanting the lighting to be dimmed still more despite wearing tinted glasses as he took up his seat. His guitarist hadn't turned up, so could we do the "ding ding" bits to accompany his rhythm guitar?

His drummer, Tom from Chorley, was accompanying him for the first time and McCulloch proceeded to treat Tom disdainfully, stopping him regularly with a waft of his hand, dissatisfied with whatever, however, he was playing. Maybe Mac should have had a drum machine, just like when the Bunnymen started.

Tom was reduced on several occasions to tapping his fingers gingerly on the rim. "Have you seen Whiplash?" one audience member asked, in reference to the drummer-bullying jazz teacher in the Oscar-winning American movie. McCulloch hadn't, but he had opinions aplenty he wished to divest in a mumbling, rambling manner.

Jimmy Savile. Not that again. Please. We really have had enough of that. Johnny Giles. Leeds United. Jimmy Savile again. The Beatles versus The Stones; who's better? Scorn for Leonard Sachs. Scorn for Manuel. The 'C' word. Why McCulloch liked smoking...and swearing.

"Do you like singing?" came a woman's voice, amid the growing frustration that McCulloch was spending more time talking, not only in between songs, but cutting into songs too, songs that too often lost all focus, drifted away or were curtailed perfunctorily.

"It's An Evening with Ian McCulloch. He can't sing all the time," came a different take on proceedings as the tragi-farce night descended into open debate. "What would you like me to do?" McCulloch asked at one point. Next time, if there should be a next time, Ian, just do what no one else here could do: sing like you do... and spare us the chatter.