Winwood's album About Time, released last year, found the former boy-wonder travelling back to his R&B roots and embracing a back-to-basics simplicity. There was a period when Winwood tried to reinvent himself as a sleek, jazzy sophisticate, a tactic that threatened to lure him into anonymous blandness and shiny suits. But he looks much happier, and sounds much more convincing, with the mixture of new material and back-catalogue highlights in his current set.

Winwood is a formidable all-round performer on keyboards and guitar, while his soulful wail of a voice has lost little of its late-1960s lustre. Perhaps he has created some kind of perpetual-youth machine down in his west country lair. At any rate, playing onstage with him is guaranteed to keep any musicians on their toes, and his current quartet showed themselves adept at both the tight, close-quarter stuff as well as the lengthy semi-improvised passages built into many of his songs.

Winwood announced his intention to embrace his past by kicking off with Pearly Queen, a nugget from his early days with Traffic. The band relished its loose, unhurried groove, drummer Alfredo Reyes screwing the beat tightly to the floor while flute, bongos and Winwood (playing bass on the keyboards) fell in around him. Guitarist Jose Neto erred occasionally towards the super-technical, but this is an ensemble you could confidently take almost anywhere.

Winwood's newer songs lack the mystique of his vintage compositions, but once the band were off and jamming it didn't make much difference. The shuffling rhumba-like beat of Why Can't We Live Together suited them especially well and prompted a sweeping foray on Hammond organ from the leader. However, accumulated history brought a special frisson to Can't Find My Way Home, which still sounds like a plaintive cry from a very dark place, while Winwood stripped the band down to a three-piece for Dear Mr Fantasy and helped himself to an extended guitar solo. For a finale, he was back at the Hammond with a stomping, steaming Gimme Some Loving, which has endured almost as well as Winwood himself.

· At Bristol Academy tonight, then tours. Box office: 0870 771 2000.