There must be great satisfaction for musicians who release an album which is a commercial and critical flop and eventually comes to be seen as a bit of a masterpiece. Playing What’s She Like, a very long song from the 1985 album Don’t Stand Me Down as a crowd pleasing encore is a perfect example of such delayed vindication.

Kevin Rowland and the new incarnation of Dexys Midnight Runners have hit a sweet spot between playing shows with strong new material that their audience likes and an enviable back catalogue. Their sold out show in the Hackney Empire on October 28^th was as joyous a musical experience as you could wish for and the band enjoyed it as much as the audience who delivered a well deserved thundering ovation at the end.

Kevin’s autobiography gives a bit more detail about some of his solitary personal habits than most readers need but he also used it to talk about his politics, which we can roughly describe as very militant Irish Republican. He is, after all, the man who wrote “the only way to change things is to shoot men who arrange things”, a perfect summary of the worldview. However, Dexys shows have been largely politics free zones. This is no longer the case. There are no speeches or slogans but projected images of the obliteration of the people of Gaza, Palestine solidarity demonstrations, calls for a united Ireland and solidarity with Cuba get the message over. He uses My Life in England to get the crowd on its feet imploring them to rise up.

We are being invited to believe that Love is likely to be the last ever Dexys album. That would be a shame. The track Once a Man, Twice a Child, about caring for a dying father with whom he had not had a good relationship shows that Kevin is still writing songs of great tenderness and compassion with the ability to move an audience. And it is not like he is doddering around the stage. He, along with the rest of the band, gives a very physical performance and I suspect many of those watching would have envied his ability to slide onto his knees with no apparent effort. It is one of those things that doesn’t get any easier.

Unsurprisingly, the latter half of the show was a greatest hits, in the broadest sense of the phrase, set. But who can begrudge a group of musicians the buzz of making a couple of thousand people that happy on a dark October night?