Over the course of his extraordinarily lengthy career, Ian Hunter has been many things to many people. Mott The Hoople's stodgy debut album found him flirting briefly with the notion of serious Rock Star. By 1972, after covering Bowie's 'All The Young Dudes' (after originally turning down 'Suffragette City'), he was, officially, a Pop Star.
Hunter used his popularity to launch a book of his exploits on the band's first US tour, the compelling Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star. Enter Ian Hunter, Author. By '76, he could no longer be contained by the restraints of a band, choosing instead his next and almost final incarnation, Solo Artist.
There was also, of course, a brief period as one of the Class Of '77's Godfathers Of Punk, a status authenticated by The Clash's Mick Jones, who produced Hunter's fourth solo album, Short Back And Sides.
These days, Ian Hunter is either a cult hero of near-mythical proportions, or that bloke with the dodgy barnet and shades that used to be famous, depending on your record collection. Why he's decided to tread the boards again after an eight-year hiatus is anyone's guess, but all tonight's audience want to do is roll away the stone and reminisce about the days when their hair, too, was as big and bouncy as Hunter's.
Time has been much kinder to Hunter than it has to his faithful followers, many of whom look like they got lost on their way to a real ale convention. T-shirts are festooned with faded Saxon and Whitesnake logos. Why? Hunter has about as much in common with joke heavy metal combos as he does with the Spice Girls. He may have parked his muse in the section marked 'rock', but he's not quite so easily pinned down.
Which he proves tonight. Despite his still-lithe frame, he looks more comfortable sitting on a stool centre stage with an acoustic guitar than he does wandering around during band solos. Maybe he'll end up as the lounge lizard about whom he sang so eloquently on his debut solo album.
Considering his long absence from the charts, this was never going to be a Greatest Hits show, but we do get a choice selection of near-misses. Finally, Hunter succumbs to nostalgia and, with a little help from Queen's Roger Taylor, we are treated to scruffily gorgeous renditions of 'All The Way From Memphis' and 'All The Young Dudes', sending us grinning all the way home and eagerly anticipating the box set and brand new album to come later this year.