If they wanted to, The Coral could have been the biggest band in the world.

At the turn of the century, when the media was scrabbling around trying to unearth the next big British thing since Britpop, a handful of schoolfriends from The Wirral rode the crest of a brief new wave that was labelled 'Scalleydelica'.

But while peers such as The Zutons sank in the wake after barely one album, The Coral kept afloat by virtue of an ear for melody and hooks that’s enviably natural to bands which formed within spitting distance of the Mersey.

However – much to the frustration of some slick-haired, skinny-tied wearing record executive I’m sure –they didn’t limit themselves to an album every few years, instead they did whatever the hell they liked, and if that meant a handful of odd, idiosyncratic EPs and albums then so be it.

All this means is that, after a lengthy hiatus, The Coral aren’t filling stadiums but instead enrapturing a packed-out Concorde 2, which is only a good thing (for us). New songs such as the prog rock blended with 60s-style harmonies of Miss Fortune and Chasing the Tail of a Dream fit the back catalogue like a floppy hat.

But it’s the encore, when second-ever single Goodbye breaks down into a tightly-woven tapestry of spacey guitar, tribal drums and frontman James Skelley’s soaring vocals, then  The Coral effortlessly demonstrate what they could have been, but chose not to.