In 1999 Roland Gift told the Guardian: "I'd rather shovel shit than live off my past." Three years on, as the lost soul singer reactivates Fine Young Cannibals, the stage equipment doesn't include a shovel. At least half the set consists of songs written since the band's demise and, although there are hits aplenty, this is anything but mere nostalgia.

Times have changed and crowds have dwindled since FYC sold millions of their 1989 pop-soul masterpiece, The Raw and the Cooked. Back then, Gift's left-wing politics irritated the tabloids while the band's bittersweet anthems captured the mood of the anti-Thatcher generation. Now, having dabbled in film acting, he has barely set foot on a stage in years and seems acutely nervous. As She Drives Me Crazy, their 1989 worldwide smash hit, stumbles to a halt, he swaps mineral water for lager. "I need to loosen up," he admits.

For Gift, that seems to mean gaining the confidence to bare his soul. If anything, the years have given him a more troubled edge. Whatever Gift has been up to in recent years, his disillusion is haunting. As Blue revisits the anti-Thatcher years, he says: "You can change 'Blue' for 'Blair'." Moments later, Love Is Not Enough is sung with the same gut-wrenching poignancy that Percy Sledge once brought to When a Man Loves a Woman.

Gift was never a soul showman, and now, dressed in the same leather jacket he has worn for years, he dances like Ali in his fateful final fights. However, the mesmeric quality remains. Musically, the band don't drift far from the 1980s FYC blueprint (soul-meets-pop with a hint of the Clash); perhaps Gift would benefit from a dance/DJ collaboration such as David Byrne's with X-Press2. However, as the hits gradually tumble out, it becomes clear that Gift isn't living off his past so much as grappling with it. Suspicious Minds is almost spectral. He appears particularly possessed during a beautifully sung Not the Man I Used to Be, and people recognise his troubles and his talent by queuing up to shake his hand.

· At Shepherd's Bush Empire, London W12 (0870 400 0688), tonight, then touring.