There was a time in the mid-eighties when the north-west of England, and Liverpool in particular, dominated the music scene. The Crucial Three, Pete Wylie, Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope, were at the top of the pile, bursting with creativity, vision and sheer audacity and never short of an outrageous quote for the press. Fast forward thirty years and Ian McCulloch’s in semi-retirement, Julian Cope’s a scholar and novelist, and Pete Wylie’s still doing what he does best; as the t-shirt says ‘Part-time rock star, full-time legend’. Which is why I was wedged in to a heaving crowd at The Water Rats in Kings Cross, watching him prove it, with the current incarnation of The Mighty Wah. He’s still got it.

The room was packed with fans from the eighties, London-based Scousers and even Liverpool-based Scousers, so he didn’t really have to warm them up. As soon as the stage lights went up, it went, well, chicken oriental, as they say in these parts. Pete Wylie’s gained something that you wouldn’t have expected from his eighties pronouncements; he’s learned to have a bit of a chuckle at his own expense. The chats with the audience between songs are sometimes funny, sometimes political (Thatcher and Trump) and sometimes fond reminiscence (Pete Burns and Wylie’s good friend Josie Jones, who was commemorated with the criminally under-rated “4 11 44”). There was plenty of nostalgia, but some powerful new material as well.

When the band kicked into “Come Back” as the second song in the set, it was an acknowledgement that Pete Wylie has anthems to spare, he didn’t need to save this classic for the end of the set. The rest of the set included “Heart as Big as Liverpool”, “Seven Minutes to Midnight” (record of the week in four music papers), “Story of the Blues” and a version of “Sinful” which morphed into “Heroes” as a Bowie tribute. Just when the audience thought he’d run out of anthems, for the encore the band blazed through “I Still Believe”, a new song from the album that’s as good as anything he’s ever written. The album’s called “Pete Sounds”; now that’s what I meant by audacity.

For ninety minutes, a little corner of Kings Cross turned into mid-eighties Liverpool. Trust the t-shirt; Pete Wylie is an absolute full-time legend.