Now, Now @ Night People, Manchester, 21 May

You’d have been forgiven for thinking that Manchester might have forgotten about Now, Now. They’d been missing in action for some time until recently, with their last album Threads being released all the way back in 2012. Since then, they’ve gone from a trio to a duo with the departure of guitarist Jess Abbott who is pursuing her own music under the name Tancred. Remaining members, singer-guitarist Cacie Dalager and drummer Bradley Hale have indulged their own solo inclinations too, the latter with the sorely-underrated album Love You in the Dark released under his Sombear moniker.

Almost as if to underline how long the Minneapolis outfit have spent away from Manchester, the last venue they played here – The Roadhouse – has long since closed down and tonight’s room has only just opened. Plus, even if their Manchester fanbase had remained loyal there’s the small matter of the fact that third LP Saved marks a major stylistic diversion, pursuing Tegan & Sara-esque synth-pop instead of Threads’ moody indie rock atmospherics.

They needn’t have worried. They get the sort of reaction from a sell-out crowd tonight that borders on hero worship. Fleshed out as a four-piece onstage they fire through a set that involves much of Saved and Threads – and the songs prove much more amenable bedfellows than you might imagine. Older cuts like Lucie, Too and Dead Oaks, troubled and tentative on record, become raucous rock singalongs, whilst a slew of new material – with MJ and SGL particular highlights – casts off the nervy atmosphere that pervades parts of Saved to become out-and-out pop stompers.

You believe Dalager when she says, before an incendiary version of Thread closes out the encore, that this is one of the best shows the band have ever played; the crowd are as responsible for that as anybody else, generating the sort of party atmosphere that will surely guarantee a quicker return to town for Now, Now than last time.