And I’m with Kevin Maguire vis à vis the overall quality of that episode. What do you think, Later Liveblog readers?

Rosanna Le May and I are on the same page re: twigs.

https://twitter.com/RosannaLeMay/status/511990984323104769

There have been 229 tweets since the show began, about the show. Is that a lot? For a 10pm BBC2 show?

Anyway, here’s someone not entirely pleased with Alt-J’s performance.

But twigs, twigs is... 1982-worthy, 2014-worthy, and indeed 2024-worthy, if you catch my drift. She won tonight. Not that it’s a contest, but she did.

A reminder, please, maestro.

Or this.

Banks was apparently going to be on tonight, says Jools. Banks!! Banks and twigs on the same show?? That’s like that episode of TOTP where Associates appeared alongside Japan! Or was it Dollar and Simple Minds?

Anyway. Alt-J to close. Of course, it should have been twigs. twigs should close everything. She feels climactic, a culmination of sorts.

Alt-J are okay, though. Again, the song is basic, the kind of thing you could strum on Vance Joy’s beard, but it is given extra indie-intellectual lustre and electronic zap.

Not as good as this.

What’s bathos, daddy? This. This bloke after that, that... apparition/deity/mirage/chimera. This sub-Sheeran on a ukulele. This George Formby throwback, only minus the jokes. Formby was operating during the war. This beard on a stick is doing this whatever-it-is-he-is-doing (sub-sub-skiffle) well into the 21st century. It should be illegal.

twigs time. I love this woman. Not literally - I haven’t met her, which is bloody annoying seeing as how I got there first, so to speak. But that voice - and those soundscapes - and that visual sense... Finally, a proper experimental pop star. Remember those? Someone to share dream space with Bush and Bjork and Billy Mackenzie and Bowie... And this is just her debut album. Where will she go and what will she do next? And can I be there to interview her when it happens? Thank you.

The O’Jays! Eddie Levert! Just don’t spoil it all by reading about the behind-scenes acrimony involving members and ex-members. I once found out the truth about The Stylistics and it’s taken me seven years to recover. It’s the guys (well, two of them) behind Backstabbers and Listen To The Clock On The Wall and all the rest, so it’s enough.

Good show so far. Ryan Adams is next. Now, Ryan Adams is SO not me I’m going to have it on my tombstone: “Paul Lester. He was utterly iffy about Ryan Adams.” But in this context, surrounded by Jungle, with The O’Jays just gone and back soon to sing Love Train, and twigs to come, I won’t begrudge him his, what?, sixth or seventh of the show. Still, heinously overrated, or what? Would he even exist if Uncut didn’t write about him every month?

The O’Jays! Jools interviews them. He asks what it’s like to have been together for 50 years, which might be news to Eric Grant, who joined in 1992.

They go back to before their Philly/proto-disco days, to doo wop, and a street corner rendition of The Impressions’ People Get Ready, if I’m not mistaken (and I’m mistaken a lot).

Ah, that’s why they’re here - they’re playing at the 02. Taxi! Docklands!

Jungle! Love the stage set. Simple but impactful. They should start a website. simplebutimpactful.com. It was always going to be hard to beat their early press photo peddling the pair as anonymous/mysterious... But the trade-off has probably been worth it - from blog favourites streamed by bearded hipsters, to attractive purveyors of accessible indie-dance who sell lots of records to actual people.

First! Alt-J and Left Hand Free. If you didn’t know their reputation for cerebral indie, you might not immediately guesstimate that that was indeed their speciality. This is vaguely Americana-ish and trad-rocky. Boogie in the ZZ Top not ‘80s disco sense. As though they were Skynyrd fans in the guise of graduate brainiacs. Sweet Home... Leeds?

But seriously, twigs and O’Jays alone make this one of the most enticing Laters in living memory. Name another tantalising duo - from Jools’ back pages - from opposite ends of the aesthetic spectrum - I dare you!

Meanwhile, proving a test of one’s grammatical mettle: FKA twigs (not FKA Twigs or fka twigs), The O’Jays (not The O Jays) and Alt-J (not alt_J or Alt_j, I don’t think...).

Can I please apologise at this juncture if things appear in the wrong order in this column. This is not due to me travelling through time and alighting in a random fashion at various events, but to sheer idiocy.

I wonder also if The O’Jays might be as epochally magnificent as this?

I wonder whether twigs will just bung “this old thing” on for tonight’s performance?

btw if you want to see behind the smoke and mirrors, here’s an article on How Later... Is Put Together.

Here’s what people are saying on Twitter.

And by “people”, I mean the team over at Later, who perhaps not unexpectedly are getting quite excited about the first episode, even deploying copious amounts of neon.

Then there’s Ilana Green, who clearly isn’t familiar with the Guardian’s New Band Of The Week feature.

Tonight sees the first episode of the 45th series of Later... With Jools Holland. That’s not “45th” as in “oh gawd, here we go again, it’s the eleventy-ninth series of Later.” No, it really is the 45th. And I’m not being blasé about it at all, because the lineup really is rather good.

It’s got:-

Ryan Adams! Who has appeared on Later... before, in 2001, although such was his state of hirsute bedragglement, it could have been 2011, or indeed 2021.

I’m not saying he’s some kind of Neil Young/Springsteen hybrid, but his latest album, released this week, is a self-titled affair featuring songs called My Wrecking Ball and Feels Like Fire...

Also very much on tonight are:-

• FKA twigs, who is surely going to win this year’s Mercury Prize, which would make her the most deserving recipient of the gong or whatever it is - statuette? small gold effigy of Simon Frith? - since Dizzee.
• Jungle, who I thought had a good chance of winning the MP too, until I heard twigs had been nommed.
• Alt-J, who DID win the Merc (is that a thing? Probably not) a few years back. Two, I think. I believe I did the next-day interview. Shame on me for not remembering.
• The O’Jays, who are one of the giants of the Philly soul era, their 1972 Backstabbers album is a classic, up there with Sly’s Riot, Marvin’s WGO and Curtis’ Superfly in the state-of-the-Watergate-nation stakes, but apart from the fabulous Extraordinary Girl in 1984 they appear to have been rather quiet so if anyone would like to let me know why they’re on tonight, I’d be immensely grateful. But still - The O’Jays! On telly!
• Vance Joy - I have heard of Vance Joy but that is all so he would be one of the ones I’m waiting to be surprised by, as opposed to the others, who can only disappoint.