It's going to be hard to find the sweet spots for sound. We're in the main arch tonight for Roots Manuva, and it's busy. The Arches is literally a series of railway arches underneath Glasgow Central station – a big cavern of a venue – and if the bass is turned up too high in here, it'll vibrate around the room and the punters'll hear nowt else – as MF Doom spectacularly failed to take on board in his first Glasgow show. Happily, Manuva's team have done their prep, and the sound's fantastic, which is excellent news – he's brought a full band out with him, including Rokhsan on keys and Ricky Ranking on backing vocal duties. The man himself bounds onstage already mid-flow into 'Here We Go Again', looking very dapper in a crisp white shirt and shiny suit jacket. Without breaking sweat, or flow, we're straight into 'Go Champ' and the crowd's frugging away quite happily while Manuva rockstars it up, foot on the monitor, mic hovering above the front row. He's tight as fuck tonight – not so much toasting lines out as punching them out, delivery clipped and efficient. The ghost train melody line of 'First Growth' kicks in, and Rokhsan delivers a brilliant vocal on the Dub Pistols-y 'Get The Get'. The Dre-stomp rhythm meeting the snarling bass of  'Crow Bars' could almost be a slower take on The Bug's cover of Kode 9's 'Fuckaz'. Manuva's got a huge grin on here, and you get a real sense of the fact his songwriting process is still to a large part him as the '17 year old kid with a bag of weed and a sequencer' he spoke of in a recent interview - he's constantly pacing the stage, checking mics, listening to keys and scratching and making sure everything's tight. First night of the tour nerves? Possibly, but given he's annoying long-term collaborator Ricky as much as anyone else, looks like general perfectionism.

He hasn't loosened off any by the time the room goes boom for 'Witness' and then threatens to take off when it segues into 'Dreamy Days'. He must have done these tracks a million times – most of the Arches could rhyme them note for note in their sleep and they're guaranteed to set the place up – and in lesser hands this could get sloppy….don't you love it at festivals when the singer doesn't bother his arse with the band's killer app and just spends most of the track with the mic hanging at the crowd? Complacent bastards. Not here. And this is no greatest hits set either – 'Buff Nuff' is noticeably absent, while Jah Warrior – which only appears on the 'Duppy Writer' Wrongtom collab gets an airing. By the time he sends us out into the coldGlasgownight (he seems incredulous that it's been snowing in the city today) it's been 90 minutes. As the elder statesman of British hiphop, with a back catalogue that today's young pups could only dream of, it'd be easy for Manuva to sit back and lap up the plaudits. Not a bit of it. Go see.