23 years ago, almost to the week, this particular writer walked out of his last high-school exam, grabbed his backpack, and headed almost immediately for Glastonbury festival. Back then, getting tickets was easy, and being based in a pretty but dull Wiltshire town where the height of excitement was the occasional gritty but locally maligned punk gig, Glastonbury seemed almost impossibly cool. It feels like a forgotten moment today, but a certain rising Welsh band headlined the Saturday night that year. At the time, Stereophonics, fresh off the back of ‘Just Enough Education To Perform’, felt on the cusp of greatness.

They were, in fact, a phenomenal headliner, outdoing Friday night rivals Coldplay – who were already edging onto that stadium-filling arc – with a light frit and a staunch sentimentality. Many still identify their first two records in particular as their finest moments, and while J.E.E.P formed the heart, ‘Word Gets Around’ still sat heavily on the setlist, as did ‘Performance and Cocktails’ and its slightly droll, oddball lyrics. Britpop was just about in the rear view mirror, and the whole thing felt like peak early 00s.

While Stereophonics would go on to have a huge following, that particular late June evening might well have been their high water mark. Their early work was both witty and po-faced, and hid layers. Tracks like ‘More Life In A Tramp’s Vest’ brought a silly kind of humour, while ‘Local Boy In The Photograph’ felt like a moment of realisation, a musical representation of that flip switch from immortal teenager summers to the real world, one that somehow sat perfectly with me in the moment. The later albums have always felt that little bit more accessible and throwaway, and that little bit worse for it.

Still, an early summer night and a tour called ‘Stadium Anthems’ offers plenty of promise, and Kelly Jones and co are – and always have been – a better live band than they are on record. There are enough big hits to scatter a set with memorable moments, and the occasional deep-ish dive to keep purists happy. They’re tight, precise, and broadly sound oddly close to the records, with added energy and bouncing pink balls.

Stereophonics at Anne’s Park. Photo by Owen Humphreys www.owen.ie

Performing in front of a classy light set up and a woefully undersized Welsh dragon, Kelly Jones is very much the centre of things, as a strutting band open with ‘Vegas Two Times’ and reach a first sing-along crescendo with a plodding but melodic ‘Have A Nice Day’.

Plodding but melodic, in fact, is a decent summary of the set as a whole, at least until the sun starts to dip. While there are nods to the finer, older moments, ‘Just Looking’ always felt like filler somehow gone big, with Mike d’Abo cover (and beautiful rework) ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, served up almost a dozen tracks in, offering the first moment that truly lifts the set beyond simply ‘performed well, nothing mind-blowing’.

Once they get going, though, Stereophonics power through songs with a swagger. The highs start coming thick and fast, not least when they go a little off script. ‘I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio’ is an unlikely highlight of the whole set. Jones pauses to tell a story about feeling pressured to rapidly tune guitars in soundcheck while supporting Bowie, so as not to take too much of his time (“you’d be onto something if your songs were a bit longer” – the thin white duke), explaining that they’ve always switched through a lot of different instruments on stage. He then pulls out a joke gift of a ukulele for the collection, which, back when he received it, he couldn’t play. He can certainly play it now, and the slightly twanging, countryfied version of the ‘Performance and Cocktails’ track is, perhaps a little weirdly, an absolute banger.

From that moment on, it feels like something has clicked with the audience, and suddenly Stereophonics are in the driving, playful, melodic form that saw them reach such highs more than two decades ago, and it’s going down an absolute storm.

‘Mr Writer’ manages to be somewhat delicate and snarling at the same time, which is a nice combo. It always feels a little strange to watch when you’re reviewing the band (it’s a stab at the common critical take on the band going steadily downhill from their debut, which, being honest, is one I share, but the snap-back is one you have to respect, and great fun).

‘Local Boy In The Photograph’ is a moment where Stereophonics walk that line between anthem and poetry, and perhaps their best ever song, telling the cutting and emotional story of a local suicide and the fall out in a friend group. It never fails live, because it has a bite and drive that their sets really benefit from.

And then there’s the closers, the mass sing-along of ‘Bartender and the Thief’, and the riff-tastic ‘Dakota’, both helping the show end on a real high. We could perhaps live without the likes of ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ and ‘Superman’, which feel a little like they simply fill the time, but the highs are worth the wait.

All in, the show feels like a slow riser: a somewhat indifferent start, lifting to a massive high and a reminder of just how great this band can be. They’re unlikely to headline Glastonbury again: the festival has moved on, and so has the band. As musically cliched as it is, they continue to feel several steps below the standard of their first two or three records, a spot where it looks like they may remain.

That said, the nostalgia, Jones’ note-perfect voice (minus a little of that post-cigarette feel these days) and enough nods to those early highs, make the band compelling, and serve to cement Stereophonics’ status as one of Wales’ greatest acts, rather than diminish it.

Perhaps you can’t bring back the smoke-tinged, pop-light grit and snarl of the past, but, as tonight shows, you can certainly celebrate it.