Sugababes @ Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow, 8 Aug

It bears remembering that during the mid to late 2000s the Sugababes existed simultaneously as one of the defining pop groups of the era, and as a punchline. Their revolving lineup drew as much attention as their music while the group’s internal ongoings became the stuff of tabloid conjecture; the Never Mind the Buzzcocks writing room couldn’t get enough. Aside from the moral grossness of this (Siobhán Donaghy was 17 when she left the group, into a mire of tabloid bullshit), it worked to detract from what was and remains one of the great pop album runs of its time. Now with the original members free from the legal wrangling of being able to use the Sugababes name, they’ve come back to a world prepared to give them their dues.

That’s a long way of saying there is a spectacular amount of good will in the Kelvingrove Bandstand tonight when Sugababes emerge. Add to that the fact it’s an outdoor gig in Glasgow and we’re not soaking wet, and the support slot has been given over to a steady stream of bangers exclusively from 2000 to 2005, and they’re walking into the kind of reception one can only dream of. They don’t half deliver though.

Leading off with an immaculate Freak Like Me that rides the balance of sleekness and digital crunch that defined so many of their greatest songs, they are astonishing from the get-go, tune after tune better than the last. Often the cramped sonic experimentalism of late 90s and early 2000s girl group production loses something live, but the more straightforward sound a live band brings is more than made up for in the sheer quality of their voices.

They’re strong alone but when they harmonise in the choruses they have a combination of physical power combined with a delicacy few others can match. The choreography still looks like the kind of thing three seven-year-olds come up with if left unaccompanied for an hour or so, and it is perfect; the absolute rejection of any sense of being eager to please that set them apart in their early appearances still firmly in place. Instead is the easy stage presence of a group who are completely aware of what makes them brilliant, and know exactly how to channel it.

We could easily reel off how each individual song is brilliant; the lolling swagger of Overload, the bolted horse energy of Round Round, the punching melodrama of Too Lost In You, but this doesn’t get to the crux of why they make for such a good gig. It's the cumulative effect of these songs, the way the place erupts for every song like its their biggest hit, the way they seem to grow with every song, and the way the smattering of songs from last years The Lost Tapes sit perfectly beside their biggest hits from more than a decade prior. By the end you feel like you’ve been through a tumble dryer with one of the truly great pop catalogues. Impeccable.