Jah Wobble and The Invaders Of The Heart, Fibbers, York, December 1

THIS one-man musical mash-up somehow turned an inauspicious night into a triumph.

The Invaders had started their set to a mostly empty Fibbers at the most unrock'n'roll hour of 8pm, but the venue grew busier and the dancing started as the evening wore on. Unlike the sold-out, Death Valley-hot John Lydon show here in 2016, there was room for plenty more bobbing heads, and that was a shame, for this band could blow PiL leader Lydon’s off the stage.

Jah Wobble is famously prolific and wonderfully eclectic: his three albums in 2018 have included a Moroccan jazz collaboration and a record inspired by the banking crisis. In concert, however, for the past couple of years he seems settled in a setlist that leans heavily on his acclaimed Usual Suspects release from 2017.

While the setlist and schtick is largely unchanged, the patter between songs is increasingly sharp, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. He talked of making the audience ill ("well ‘tom and dick'," as the geezer put it) with the frequency of his bass ("the king of the musical jungle"), played at such a volume as to make the room and everything in it vibrate.

Blending jazz, dub and instrumentals, this was music to dance to. Liquidator was perfection, and while their guitar attack on Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain was an audience pleaser, better was the middle eastern Every Man Is An Island. Put simply, his tightly knit band were incredible; Marc Layton-Bennett (drums), Martin Chung (guitars) and George King (keyboards) were each playing at a virtuoso level.

While some songs outstayed their welcome, and Wobble’s singing remains an acquired taste, the band regularly reached levels that for most are out of sight. Their closing take on the Get Carter theme put the seal on a classic set.

Paul Rhodes