WELL, VOODOO Dolly, it's so good to have you back where you belong.  When Siouxsie and Budgie resurfaced with the third Creatures album in 1999 it seemed they had finally put the Banshees to rest.  Perhaps partly in the light of the liver-spotted cabaret of the Pistols' mid-90s reunion, Siouxsie spoke distastefully of nostalgia: she and Budgie were forging ahead with new music.  So shouldn't this feel like a capitulation?  Because it doesn't - it's a glorious, celebratory subversion.

From the intro music onwards (10 minutes of Neu!'s Hallo Gallo, with lightshow) it's clear the Banshees are a long way from the chicken-in-the-basket circuit.  This was a fan's show: only five songs post-1981, dotted among chunks of '78 debut The Scream, '80's Kaleidoscope and '81's inadvertent goth ur-text Juju.  And if Steve Severin looks amusingly matronly, the same can hardly be said of Siouxsie, fabulous in fitted grey Armani pinstripe with black tie, stripping to the waist after the riotous Cities In Dust to reveal a jewel-encrusted bra.  Let's be honest - how many punk icons would you want to see semi-naked (except Paul Simonon, obviously)?

Budgie - easily one of rock's most creative drummers, largely because of his non-rock influences - is eternally lithe and feline; only erstwhile Psychedelic Fur Knox Chandler betrays his role as jobbing guitarist, albeit amiably so.

Freaks, androgynes and - unusually for a UK rock show - visible gay men crowd the auditorium.  Isn't this, rather than a bunch of blokes standing around in Stone Island cagoules, what rock 'n' roll was meant to be about?  As a host of new bands (many from New York) rediscover the myriad, angular possibilities of post-punk, this brief reunion feels like a long overdue reaffirmation of spiky outsiderdom, a history since sidelined by a conservative musical/critical establishment, as even former heroes (hello, Weller) join the pipe-and-slippers brigade, slavishly espousing endless punk-never-happened trad tedium.  Songs of sensory overload are a Banshee speciality - Jigsaw Feeling, Christine, Spellbound.  Sensual, predatory, jagged - this is music that threatens to destabilise the status quo, not confirm it, a dangerous intoxication.

Up in the circle, Severin's five-year-old daughter dances, arms above her head, transfixed, as Siouxsie twirls through Happy House.  How incredible that for her this could be a beginning, blissfully unaware of the betrayals of the intervening years.

David Peschek.