The Quire Boys Frazer Theatre, Knaresborough

THERE is no hiding place in the Frazer Theatre for what will turn out to be the third greatest rock moment of my life.

The audience, some of whom have travelled from as far afield as New York and Glasgow, can see the whites of the band's eyes.

More importantly, perhaps, the band can see the audience, too, seated a matter of inches away from them below the low stage noticeably free of barriers or bouncers.

The old-fashioned nature of this tiny theatre must take The Quire Boys back to their early days in the early 1980s.

Still loveable rogues after all these years, the two core members exchange glances and quips like brothers who've been too close for too long.

Griff, the guitarist with the knowing smile, healthy and handsome-looking in his stylishly-coiffeured long hair and beard, Spike, the natural frontman, all mouth, still the rock n roll gypsy in pinstripe jacket, jeans and head scarf, swigging Jack Daniels, or whatever his latest poison is, from a plastic pint glass.

From the start they sound fantastic in what is one of the band's first 'unplugged' gigs in quite a while.

You can hear where every second of their two-and-a-half hour sound check went - the mix for this 'unplugged' performance sounds wonderful.

Not only does Spike's tough but tender rasping vocal sound utterly spot-on the whole time, it's wrapped in the gorgeous warm thrum of various acoustic instruments, drums and keyboards from the veterans of this nice and easy, seven-piece band.

A sign of how good this performance lies in the fact it's not only the old classics which impress, its recent, lesser-known numbers, too, which diehard fans tell me later are far better than the album versions.

So for every Pretty Girls off debut album A Bit of What You Fancy we get Mona Lisa Smiled off 2008's Homewreckers and Heartbreakers, for every King of New York off follow-up Bitter, Sweet and Twisted we get Late Night Saturday Call.

Even the unusual choice of covers pays off handsomely.