Although hardly a household name, Max Romeo can always congratulate himself on making one of reggae's all-time great albums, 1976's War Ina Babylon. He probably hopes everyone has forgotten 1969's mildly notorious Wet Dream, but today's exceedingly Rastafarian Romeo looks as if he takes the long-distance spiritual view of success, failure, frivolity and everything in between. "Don't get too paranoid like some people do these days," he urged us, amid some rueful reflections on the dire state of the planet which prefaced a song called Perilous Time.

But even if he needs no prompting to hold forth about Babylon and Rastafari, with a few Wailers-like ooh-yeahs for punctuation, Romeo can still deliver a gripping performance.

Buttressed by a 10-piece band, featuring guitars, keyboards, a couple of female backing singers and an excellent brass trio, Max strode around the stage in a kind of preacher's frock coat, his silvery beard and long grey dreadlocks imparting the impression of an itinerant mystic who won't stop until every corner of the planet has been proselytised.

At 56, Romeo is still in fine voice, and has enough confidence in its earthy tones to sing Bob Marley's Redemption Song unaccompanied. His music mostly addresses issues of spiritual awareness set against earthly struggle, so the punchy Uptown Babies is a ghetto-eye view of the wealthy folks who live on the hill while A Little Time For Jah, one of several new songs, is an exhortation to get the Lord in your life.

As Max prowled the front of the stage, the band rattled through the fizzing skank of Jamaican Ska, a mysterious War Ina Babylon adorned with eerie vocal harmonies, and the souped up Skully Wally, another new one. However serious his message, Romeo avoids getting po-faced, and refers to himself as "the world's oldest teenager". He could teach many a teen idol some tricks.