Bob Mould @ Òran Mór, 18 May

With his compelling autobiography, acclaimed solo albums, and comprehensive Sugar reissues in the last few years, interest in Bob Mould is as high as it’s been in a long time. It's no surprise then that Òran Mór is stuffed, mostly with men of a certain age in checked shirts. A decent number make it in time to catch North Atlantic Oscillation overcome muddy sound and a synth mishap to deliver a set of swirling epic rock with neat electro twists.

When Mould sets foot on stage and tears straight into The Act We Act's machine gun riff, it’s the first of five straight songs off Copper Blue. It's snarling, breathless stuff, whisking everyone here back to 1992, with no let up until a furious Hoover Dam fades into feedback. It’s a cunning ploy, and energy levels are such that switching to recent solo numbers is barely even noticed.

In fact everything's cranked up, meaning that even the dreamy Come Around becomes a behemoth tonight. But the PA-worrying sound can't mask the obvious differences between the pure pop of Sugar and the hardcore punk of SST-era Hüsker Du songs. The raging anger of Flip Your Whig and Makes No Sense At All on their own demosntrate that this 50-something still has plenty of fire in his belly. [Stu Lewis]