So Mick Jagger is 65. Pah! John Mayall is 74. The man served in the British Army during the Korean War before becoming the “father of British blues” in the 1960s. And, while he doesn’t exactly have Jagger’s priapic stage presence, the silver-haired Mayall is still a sprightly gent with a full date sheet. Resident in California since the 1970s, he was clearly delighted to be back for a visit to London where it all began for the Bluesbreakers, and in a club which must have reminded him of those early years: cramped and uncomfortable, with the stage located in close proximity to a noisy bar.

The band began the set without Mayall, a sure sign that age and ego are finally beginning to catch up with him. But, having made his grand entrance, the bandleader knuckled down to some serious work, playing keyboards and harmonica (sometimes simultaneously) and singing in his high and increasingly fragile tone. The gum-chewing drummer Joe Yuele maintained an imperturbable groove, while the bass player Hank Van Sickle was settled so deep in the pocket there were times when he appeared to have fallen asleep on his feet. The responsibility for applying a dynamic edge to the performance thus rested in large part on the shoulders of the Texan guitarist, Buddy Whittington, a substantial man in a rather startling purple shirt who looked like a villain from a slasher movie.

The early part of the set was taken up with a bunch of polite shuffles and gentle funky grooves from the recent part of Mayall’s huge repertoire. But the show started to gather momentum only when he ventured into ancient territory, with a more animated performance of All Your Love, the Otis Rush song that opened the celebrated 1966 Bluesbreakers album featuring Eric Clapton.

Whittington played the Clapton role superbly, and then took over the vocal reins for an outstanding version of Freddie King’s slow blues Help Me Through the Day, which was clearly the high-water mark of the show. Mayall played a bit of guitar on One Life to Live, a moody song about his time in Korea.

But it was Whittington who continued to steal the show with a searing performance of Hideaway to which even Clapton would surely tip his hat.

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