It has been five years since Joe Jackson went “back to basics” and reconvened the three-man backing band with which he first made his name in the late 1970s. Now, having parted company with the guitarist Gary Sanford, Jackson has pared the basics down to essentials and arrived here accompanied only by Graham Maby on bass and Dave Houghton on drums.

The piano trio is a unit that exists more commonly in jazz than pop and it was a testament to Jackson's elegantly flowing melodies and the fluent technique of all three players that they pulled it off, although Sanford's chiming tone was sorely missed at times, never more so than at the start of Is She Really Going Out With Him? Jackson sat imperiously behind a black grand piano, head thrown back as he dispatched the lyrics in his famously sardonic mid-Atlantic brogue. Maby sported the floppy brown fringe he has had since 1979 as he nimbly manipulated his red bass guitar, while Houghton has morphed into Victor Meldrew. He skittered around an electronic drum kit, an odd choice that jarred with the plainspoken musical spirit of the operation.

Jackson was in town to promote Rain, a new collection of songs written and played in the style of such early albums as I'm the Man and Night and Day. Early selections from the new material - Invisible Man and Too Tough - sat comfortably alongside the older numbers that peppered the set, including Steppin' Out and Chinatown. Rain was recorded in Berlin, where Jackson has taken up self-imposed exile. His wry and sometimes weary cosmopolitan worldview remains largely unaltered by the change of scene, although an unusually dark cloud hovered over the keyboard as he devoted his attention to Solo (So Low), a new song that must rank as one of the bleakest he has written.

An unexpected version of Abba's Knowing Me, Knowing You and a sensational take on David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) raised the stakes and the spirits. But Jackson remains a prickly pear occupying an unapologetically retro niche, who currently shows little inclination to move forward or engage with the modern pop world.