Still resembling the house band in some lost Sam Peckinpah movie, Grammy award-winning Radio 2 darlings The Mavericks have returned after a five-year hiatus.

They're promoting the eponymous follow up to their breakthrough Trampoline album.

Broadly speaking, The Mavericks are Roy Orbison cutting loose on vacation in Tijuana but shorthand cannot do justice to this eclectic Florida-born, Nashville-based band.

Their tendency to skip nimbly across genres, often in the space of a single song, has hindered them in the US, yet it has made them dearly cherished over here, particularly with their one big hit, Dance The Night Away.

At the Dome Concert Hall, they took us on a freewheeling stroll through bar-room rock 'n' roll, honky-tonk country, Latino roots, rockabilly and swing jazz.

It was a delight to see a band now well into their second decade taking such conspicuous glee in playing live together. Singer Raul Malo is a ribald raconteur and natural showman. Beside him, the dapper Eddie Perez provided some fluid guitar work and if drummer Paul Deakin's rhythm lines could be a little plodding at times, the exuberant interaction between the players remained contagious.

Malo's solo acoustic interlude, incorporating Moon River and I Can't Help Falling In Love With You, was delicately moving, though the overly sedate mid section of the set veered too close to MOR territory.

But, thereafter, the last night of the tour found the band in particularly playful mood.

The horn section started up impromptu cover versions of classic soul tracks and Malo addressed Wonderin' to the guitar roadie, ad libbing new lyrics to cast aspersions on his sexual leanings.

The encore of All You Do Is Bring Me Down and a raucous take on Dark Side Of The Street saw crew members wandering on to play unplugged guitars. The keyboardist rushed out to break into a maniacal hoedown, then invited the front few rows up on stage to join him. Far, far more, then, than the one-hit wonders of popular repute.

Review by Warren Pegg, features@theargus.co.uk