Late July 1976: if you were a British jazz/rock fan, all roads led to the legendary Hammersmith Odeon in West London.

The Billy Cobham/George Duke Band opened three nights of music, followed by John McLaughlin’s Shakti and then the headliners Weather Report. The encores often featured members of all three fusion supergroups.

So how apt that a reformed Shakti should appear at the same venue almost exactly 47 years on. And what a relief that they chose the Hammersmith Odeon (it’ll always be the Odeon to me, I can’t call it the ‘Apollo’…) to kick off this hugely anticipated 50th anniversary tour rather than the predictable Barbican or Royal Festival Hall. Accordingly, this was not your usual ‘jazz’ crowd after a little ‘culture’ – it was a vocal, refreshingly multicultural audience.

An attempt to marry ‘Western’/blues-influenced timbres with both North/South Indian rhythmic/melodic approaches, Shakti released three albums between 1976 and 1978, then reformed as Remember Shakti in 1998 for three more tours and subsequent live albums.

For this iteration, promoting brand new studio album This Moment, 81-year-old guitar master McLaughlin was joined by regular collaborators Zakir Hussain on tabla, Shankar Mahadevan on vocals and Selvaganesh Vinayakram on sundry percussion, plus youthful new recruit Ganesh Rajagopalan on violin.

There was combustive interplay on the opener ‘5 In The Morning, 6 In The Afternoon’, McLaughlin going back to his youth with some potent blues licks, bringing to mind his playing on Miles’s ‘Right Off’. Is he using an amp again, after years of firing his guitar straight through the PA?

An exquisite ‘Zakir’ came with heartfelt words from John to his friend. ‘Anna’, described as a ‘golden goldie’ by Hussain, featured flawlessly-played classical Indian lines and a brilliantly fluid solo from Rajagopalan.

John’s guitar gained a little more distortion in time for the violinist’s composition ‘Mohanam’, and by the middle of the gig he was in his element, dropping in references to ‘Lila’s Dance’ and Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder’. New track ‘Bending The Rules’ even saw John inject a lick from his 1980s classic ‘Florianapolis’. ‘Sakhi’ and ‘Lotus Feet’ were very touching, and some incendiary konnakol percussion duels closed the show on ‘Finding The Way’.

There was light and shade, fury and meditation at this excellent gig – the only downside was the incessant filming with mobile phones. Is there no privacy/immediacy at these larger concerts? The Shakti story continues. Who would have predicted that five years ago? Their tour continues through Europe and into the US during August. Don’t miss.