“There are the brothers Meat Puppets,” announced Kurt Cobain as Curt and Cris Kirkwood joined Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, for acoustic run-throughs of three of the Arizona band’s songs. The broadcast introduced the band’s unique, almost genreless music to millions of teenagers, and was payback for a group who had blazed out of SST Records along with Hüsker Dü, and influenced Nirvana and many others.

Cris Kirkwood and his wife subsequently became addicted to heroin; she overdosed and died and he was shot during an altercation, after which he was jailed. However, he emerged drug free and was reconciled with his singer-guitarist brother. He now plays with the fire and relish of a man given an unexpected second chance.

The venues are smaller than in their heyday, but the band remain revered, and this outing – with newish drummer Shandon Sahm and Curt Kirkwood’s son Elmo on additional guitar – sees them flit from outsiderly punk to country rock to jazz-tinged psychedelia, while the more obsessive fans record the gig. The brothers didn’t speak for years, but their musical chemistry – not least their fret-melting, interlocking guitar duelling – is certainly worth capturing.

The 100-minute set covers most corners of their catalogue and several covers (George Jones, Freddie Fender, and sublime reworkings of the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B and the Everly Brothers’ Cathy’s Clown). Plateau, as played with Cobain all those years ago, smoulders like the Arizona wilderness. Their elongated space rockers sound as if they are indeed being beamed in from another universe, but perennial classic Lake of Fire – another played with Nirvana, about judgment and early graves – has powerful resonance as the brothers sing the words with poignancy and feeling.

• At The Garage, London, 4 September. Box office: 0844 847 1678. Then touring.