Shed Seven at York Museum Gardens: Emotive substance and style as York's indie heroes celebrate 30 years

“Enough of that, now!” Rick Witter admonishes a sell-out four-figure crowd spilling over the lawns at York Museum Gardens.

Sloping down the hills before him, more than four-thousand punters continue to chant back at him, and he grins. “We’re on a strict curfew! Enough of that, or we’ll have to start dropping songs.”

There is no serious chance, of course, that Shed Seven will particularly curtail this evening, the second of two shows nestled at the heart of the city where they emerged from.

The country seat of Yorkshire so seldom sees big shows thanks to a lack of venues with adequate capacity. It is a fitting affair, then, that their most successful sons should return amid perhaps the biggest year of their revival to play for the masses in a fitting birthday celebration.

Celebrating thirty years in the game with a two-night hometown midsummer stand, the group - still driven by the idiosyncratic voice of Witter and the guitar chimes of Paul Banks more than a decade and a half after their 2007 reformation - made history when they topped the UK Album Charts for the first time in January, with seventh collection A Matter of Time.

It marked arguably a new peak for the Britpop favourites - and here, they mark their special occasion with emotive substance and style.

Befitting the occasion, there’s no shortage of guests to accompany them - Witter wheels out his son Duke, frontman of fellow indie group Serotones, to add an additional dimension to High Hopes, while In Ecstasy conjures up Happy Mondays singer Rowetta out of the wings.

A local choir takes the stage for a triumphant Bully Boy too, and throughout, each gesture is met with roars of love and affection below.

The hits are obviously what come hardest to those in attendance, with Where Have You Been Tonight? and On Standboy prompting particularly beery singalongs.

Going for Gold too makes for a delight, and one that gains even greater entertainment value when Banks turns its riff into a stirring romp through the Elvis Presley staple Suspicious Minds.

By the time Chasing Rainbows is being sung acapella back to the band, Witter looks close to tears. “We’ll never forget this weekend,” he cries. “We’ll see you in thirty years, right back here, yeah?”

You can bet the house on it.