Legend has it, according to Pauline Black of The Selecter, that when the band used to perform Too Much Pressure live,

a fight would break out between them.

Little chance of that 25 years on. Never completely out of fashion but unfortunately never likely to eclipse its brief majesty in the late Seventies and early Eighties, 2Tone is growing old gracefully.

Gone are sweaty, moshing punters, cans of Red Stripe and smoky bars. Instead, the furious rhythms have been replaced by stools, comfortable shoes, bottles of Evian and gallant retrospection.

Here, Black was reunited with members of The Specials, The Beat and Bad Manners to play acoustically as 3Men+Black.

"It's not a party until you've murdered a good Tamla Motown song," The Beat's Dave Wakeling amiably declared before launching into Tears Of A Clown, after a comparatively tepid rendition of Ska classic Message To You Rudy.

Lacking drums, brass and keyboards, the sound was closerto the movement's roots than the ground-breaking genre they helped create.

Roddy Radiation, of The Specials, still seems to have much of the inspiration in his locker, as he playfully picked and dived up and down the frets of his electric guitar but he is rarely let out of his cage.

Rhodda Dakka, of both The Specials and The Bodysnatchers, was charming but her Life Could Be So Easy, like so many of these Ska songs, seemed somewhat lost as an acoustic number.

In the first half of the set, the newest song, Black and Nick Welsh of Bad Manners' Ten Years stood out as the most potent. A memorial to Stephen Lawrence, railing against "all hate crime", it combines reggae rhythms with inner-city timbre in the way Ska should be remembered. Hands Off She's Mine brought the cheers and It Doesn't Make It Alright stands out as a forgotten anthem waiting to be covered by some bright sparks ready to nail their flag to the NME.

On My Radio seemed as current and energetic today as it did when it was ripping up the charts; Gangsters and Concrete Jungle sounded raw.

When asked if The Specials will ever reform, Radiation replied: "I need the money but I don't want to do it. The psychiatry bills would be too much."

However, set between these, the acoustic interpretations were unapologetic but without fanfare.

Anniversary celebrations aside, the sound is far better preserved in vinyl.