Review | Jim Jones All Stars at Ashcroft Arts Centre, Fareham: "A riot of rock'n'roll at its libidinous best"

Particularly when the venue doesn't have an elevated stage and frontman Jim Jones is straddling his mic stand and howling the dirty garage-rock soul of recent single Gimme The Grease, while a pair of sax players are wailing right next to him, all about three feet from your face.

The barrier between band and audience is next to nonexistent.

It's the opening night of the Jim Jones All Stars' tour, and their first since releasing debut album, Ain't No Peril.

Jones has been at this game since the 1980s, fronting a string of acclaimed acts, from Thee Hypnotics via Black Moses, to his self-titled Revue and The Righteous Mind. Melding the roots of rock with punk power and a soupçon of soul has been a constant thread. However, up until now, every new act has represented a clean break with the past.

The All Stars' live sets has seen him delving into bands from throughout his career for the first time, and it is a joy to see all of these combined with the might of his current band.

Ain't No Peril comes complete with its own mythology already sorted – on the eve of its recording the band had a mysterious encounter at the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi where legendary bluseman Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil.

Tracks from the album, like the impish Voodoo Working and the lascivious I Want You, sit nicely along the older material, as well as a smattering of covers.

The eight-piece band are something to behold, each member bringing a vital ingredient to the gumbo. They're a riot of rock'n'roll at its libidinous best.

They bring the thuggish energy of a barroom brawl to Revue tracks like Cement Mixer and Burning Your House Down. But after the bone-headed horniness of Bukka White's Troglodyte they are capable of switching to the 1950s-style crooner Lovers' Praye r, before cutting back to the ferocious piano-driven Rock'n'Roll Psychosis. It's utterly exhilarating.

And Righteous Mind track Satan's Got His Heart... is a filthy trip to hell and back.

The main set finishes with Thee Hypnotics' appropriately titled Shakedown – a blow-out that's the bastard offspring of Iggy Pop and Chuck Berry.

There's a one-song encore of Revue-era song 512 and they're done. Sweaty and sated.

Whatever deal they struck at those crossroads, it was worth it.