@ O2 Academy, Glasgow, on Tue 5 May 2015

One day, twenty or thirty years from now, people will look back and wonder why Super Furry Animals were ‘only’ playing Academy venues. It’ll be like discovering you could have seen The Stones at your local ballroom in 1966. The most original, versatile and playful group to emerge from the post-Britpop void, theirs is the pop music of a stranger, twisted, more beautiful parallel universe in which they are playing the 3 million capacity International Enormodome after just completing 20 weeks at number one. More fool the unititiated. Those in the know have long treasured the Welsh boys’ musical wizardry and been glad everyone’s not all over it.

To the sinister synth string soundtrack of [A] Touch Sensitive they emerge – Gruff, Bunf, Cian, Guto, Daf – rocking the chillaxed forensic scientist look of white boiler suit and lackadaisical haircare. Tonight’s set is 60/40 blissed out Furries to noise terror Furries. A suite of songs from their recently re-released Welsh language album, Mwng, tips the setlist in favour of their mellower side. But the real mellow gem of the night is Run, Christian, Run, a more spiritually uplifting moment than anything offered by the suicidal fundamentalists it derides.

And in case any in the audience weren’t aware of just how broad Super Furries’ palette is, it’s all on display here – the Latin brass of Northern Lites, the cutesy vocoder of the best white soul record of the past 25 years (Juxtaposed With U), industrial sub-bass on Slow Life that is so heavy half the Gorbals will need the structural engineers out tomorrow.

There’s a few omissions from the setlist – nothing from the last two albums, Zoom! from 2005’s Lovekraft being the most recent presented tonight – but if there’s a downside to the gig, it’s certainly not the songs. There’s just a little ring-rustiness about them, a sense that after six years apart they’re not quite back firing on all cylinders. Not that any of that matters to the faithful. By the time they kick in to perennial set-closer The Man Don’t Give A Fuck, everyone is pogoing cathartically, just glad to be revelling in some Super Furry noise again. More of this please.