MOO! It has to be one of British rock's strangest yet most affectionate symbols of bonding to a band (who numbered their records Cow Dung 1, 2 etcetera).

As the lights dimmed, the mooing began, and it was to continue between each song too, as the largely male York supporters branch of Madchester reunited to recall the era of the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets: the Shed Seven to the Blur and Oasis of their day. The irony of the mooing being heard on the former site of the York cattle market was lost in the celebration of the return of another sound from the past: the Inspirals.

Inspiral Carpets had bade farewell with the posthumous compilation The Singles in 1995 but both the band's boom and Boon - epic-voiced Tom Hingley and Farfisa organ player Clint Boon - had kept themselves active in music projects.

Why not roll out the Carpets one more time, they thought. So this year they have been re-living their glory days with the vintage line-up: Hingley, Boon, Graham Lambert on guitar, Martyn Walsh on bass and Craig Gill on driving drums.

The live show is a canny and happy union of nostalgic paraphernalia and current technology (a psychedelic, spiralling light show with a superb use of strobes, and a fashionable use of cut-up sounds to link songs). Nostalgia is the essence, however, and the band made the smart decision of packing the standing area - and leaving the seating empty - to recreate the sweat and euphoria of yore. Six giant milk bottles were hanging from the ceiling in a row, and more were cluttering up the stage, each emblazoned with the Inspirals' Cool As Milk insignia and the motif of the cow in shades. Meanwhile, the Moo logo went spinning around the Barbican walls.

A chunkier Hingley looked like he had down a few pints of the full fat variety, but boy, he could still lead a crowd, arms aloft and hollering. The hits rolled out, drums compact, that organ pumping. Generations, Weakness and She Cries In The Fall arrived early; Saturn 5 raced to the stars, I Want You snarled; Dragging Me Down was as urgent as ever, and still the encores were to come.

Live favourite Joe lifted the revived spirits still higher; 96 Tears wasn't a patch on the Stranglers' cover but the Inspirals showed bottle in revamping Northern Soul classic Tainted Love. They may be gone again soon, but the closing This Is How It Feels affirmed that, on their day, this is how it still feels. Oh, and they paid tribute to Shed Seven, the York band soon to enter retirement. Good lads indeed.

Updated: 09:28 Wednesday, December 03, 2003