And so all that remains is for me to thank you all for joining me for tonight’s Liveblog, it has been a rollercoaster, a journey (oops, done that one already, soz), and to hope that you will keep company my inestimable colleague Michael Cragg, who will be keeping the seat warm next week. Not literally, of course - he doesn’t live in my house. This isn’t The Monkees, you know.

Interpol are guests on episode 6, as are the Blasters, Sam Smith, Zola Jesus (not Zola Blood or Zola Budd, or indeed Emile Zola), and a band called U2, who apparently have a new album out? Anyone? No, me neither.

Martin Ballantine was unimpressed.

Blimey, that went fast. There was something Einsteinian about the freakish speed at which that half hour whizzed by. No, ZOOMED. Zoom, by Fat Larry’s Band, 1982. Who’s Zoomin’ Who - that was an Aretha Franklin single from 1985. She’s just done an album with Clive Davis - how do I know? Because I spoke to him today on the phone! Me and Clive, we’re like that.

No, but seriously - decent episode, that.

What do YOU think, folks?

Labrinth to close? Say wha’?? He’s doing one called Misbehavin’. This has a robot voice and an electronic bass and you could be forgiven for guessing that it’s from his first album but actually now he’s started singing all gruff and R&B style (‘60s variety), that bassline is well Motown, the melody is like something Sam & Dave might have bellowed into submission in 1965... It’s electroid gospel R&bass, or something. And it’s got a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd on guitar. And this bit right now, this finger-popping cute bit, is great!

Jools says they’re extraordinary and wonderful. Nice voice - second best voice of the night after Rumer. Her sister is playing the lap - not anyone’s lap, her own. She is patting and clicking all over the shop. I thought this was going to be rather more strange, exotic and esoteric, but it’s pretty much conventional soulful piano balladry. Nice enough, though. Ah, now they appear to have reverted to a less familiar tongue. Very Jazz Cafe on a rainy Tuesday night.

Sinead! From her new album! She’s got a vicar’s collar thingy on! She was ordained as a priest, right? Wasn’t she? Is she still? She’s singing about being taken to church. Not going to church - being taken. Suggests an element of resistance, not volition. I got a ‘B’ at GCSE in English Literature. She appears to be possessed by the ghosts of Sleater-Kinney. And she appears to have taken lessons in Scrawling On Your Hand from Chris Martin. Leather kecks and a priest’s habit - good combo. One for 2015, fashion victims.

This is Adam Cohen. Do he and Rufus and Sean Lennon and Jacob Dylan and the others meet up once a month to compare notes? This is all very serviceable and fine, if you like this sort of thing. I’m still thinking about Holly in those chaps. And wondering now finally after 30 years whether Mark O’Toole was a comedy alias.

This is that Tube performance of Relax from back in the day.

They ARE doing a song together! On Friday! (Memo to self: be out). Holly looks great! They’re talking about the new album. I did not know he co-wrote a track with Vangelis. Did he really say that? I’m casting back to Frankie on The Tube in 1983, wearing those chaps and chains. He actually doesn’t look that different!

Ah, Rumer. Doing the single. It’s the Sound of Philadelphia meets La Carpenter. Divine strings, a voice that is all about melancholy and restraint, that doesn’t screech for attention... what’s not to like? I haven’t seen the credits for this track, but given that she’s worked with Burt Bacharach, I wouldn’t put it past her to have co-written this with someone amazing from 1972. Was that man with the beard at the back of Rival Sons’ stage really Kenny Gamble in a false beard? The Detroit Spinners could have had a hit with this right after I’ll Be Around. I can’t compliment any higher.

Rival Sons, touted by People I Trust as Absolutely It when it comes to bluesy American rock. Elements of the Stripes, the Keys and KoL appear to be present and correct in their sonic, ahem, maelstrom. Am I right? You can see why Classic Rock put them on the cover - they’re a new, updated variant on the original McCoy. He’s a bit Vedder-esque, isn’t he, that chap at the mic. Only a Vedder not allergic to pleasure.

I think I just saw my rabbi shaking maracas at the back there.

Labrinth shocks all-comers by assuming pole position! Now let’s have a listen to this much-vaunted ‘70s soul direction. It’s bluesy, fo’ sho’. Was blues a thing in the ‘70s? Hmm, not as far as I’m told by older relatives. Certainly, though, this is a change of pace - what they use to call a volte face - from the chart popster. Then again, his record collection is vast and wide - how do I know? because he told me so - and he was never going to stand still for long. Although he is sitting still at that piano. The stabbing horns are a teensy bit ‘70s, I’ll give him that. Interesting.

Honestly this time.

Give or take a Beeb trailer.

It’s so about to start, I can’t even begin to tell you.

Let’s take the temperature of the Twittosphere, shall we?

Labrinth is wondering who’s going to be watching - there’s confidence for you.

Here is the Later... wotsit thingum that they Tweet every week.

Although do we know why it’s on Thursday this week, not Tuesday? Am I being incredibly thick? Is it a football thing, or an apocalyptic disease thing?

There’s a photo of tonight’s lineup on Later...’s Facebook page. But where’s Holly?

How can it not be? It does, after all, feature:-

• Sinead O’Connor! Who will be performing a song - if not songs plural because she is probably, even after all these years, still The Marquee Name and so may well be opening and closing the show - from her latest album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss.
• Rumer! Who will be singing tracks from her upcoming third studio album Into Colour, including new song Dangerous, which by the way is a Karen Carpenter-goes-Philly soft-soul neo-classic.
  
• Labrinth! Who apparently has also adopted “a more soulful 1970s sound” on his upcoming second album Take Me to the Truth.
  
• Rival Sons! The Long Beach, California blues-rock young ‘uns who graced the cover of Classic Rock earlier this year and got whatever the next level is beyond “rave” reviews for their fourth album Great Western Valkyrie.
  
• Ibeyi! The French/Cuban twin daughters of famed Cuban percussionist Anga Díaz, who was a member of Buena Vista Social Club.
  
• Adam Cohen! The son of Leonard will be playing a track from his fifth album We Go Home and dodging people like me who insist on calling him “the son of Leonard”.
  
• Holly Johnson! The former Frankie Goes To Hollywood frontman will be chatting to Jools about his first new album in 15 years, 30 years after the release of Welcome To The Pleasuredome. They will then break into a roll-aht-ver-barrel rendition of Relax on the ol’ joanna. All-tuhgever nah: “Relax, don’t do it, when you want to suck it to it-ah!” (to be sung in a cockney accent positively slathered in jellied eels).