Fittingly for Hove’s holiest music venue, this was a night of hope.

First grounds for optimism was provided by Jason Lyttle heralding Grandaddy’s new album next year with a promising taster in the shape of a stripped down version of Songbird Son due to feature on the band’s upcoming fifth album.

The new song is a reminder of all the melodic qualities that brought Grandaddy to prominence 20 years ago with further memory joggers served up in slower, delicate versions of Now It’s On and The Crystal Lake.

Ray of hope number two was brought by Giant Sand’s charismatic frontman Howe Glebe who said the band was not breaking up after 30 years but “being put to bed to be awoken sometime in the future”.

There’s certainly plenty of life in them based on this rip-roaring performance, starting off as a Countrified Cohen before letting rip with wailing guitars on Forever And A Day and sprawling epic Ride The Rail.

Lyttle and Glebe, cutting contrasting figures with the former resembling a binman and the latter Ming The Merciless as a southern preacher man, team up to finish the evening with an uplifting version of Hewlet’s Daughter  filling all the audience with hope and admiration.