Never mind the occasional senior moments that cause conferences with fans on how the third verse of one of his own classic songs starts or the name of his third last album, Richard Thompson's music is as vital as it's ever been and actually seems to be growing stronger. It is not just that the opening salvo of songs, from Thompson's latest album, Sweet Warrior, began proceedings brimming with confidence but also the sheer brio and muscular purpose that Thompson brought to the golden oldies section defied his typically self-depracating description of it as "the hit".

He's helped, of course, by a band of trusty accomplices who can morph from the tough rockin' that now guides the previously jaunty Bright Lights into a fair approximation of a 1940s jazz band, complete with solos all round, on the swinging nostalgia of Al Bowlly's in Heaven. Later, they'll switch with similar ease from the Middle Eastern vibe of One Door Opens to Hebridean folk-rockers on The Mingulay Boat Song. The last named sounds such a part of Thompson's musical DNA that he almost didn't need to mention that his granny used to sing it to him.

Three things above all, though, speak for Thompson's rude artistic health. There's the acute observation of new songs such as Dad's Gonna Kill Me, sung from a GI in Iraq's point of view, and the absolute command - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning's third verse apart - of his voice and acoustic guitar spot. And lastly, there's his electric guitar playing, idiosyncratic, a living amalgam of blues, modes, bagpipes, rockabilly and pedal steel and, on Hard on Me, truly epic.