Typically, if not traditionally, it’s venues that operate particularly rigorous ‘one in, one out’ policies, rather than the artists that (at least attempt to) sell them out; nonetheless, no sooner had bassist Johan Wohlert returned to the fold, than guitarist Bo Madsen folded. Thus although the first of ‘two very special end of year shows’ at London’s Village Underground proves an incontrovertibly celebratory affair, Mew are never quite at their very majestic best in Madsen’s absence…

His replacement, Mads Wegner, may well be ‘a very skilled guitar player and a great person, and someone who Johan had worked with before’, although the charisma provided by Madsen – once stage-right, but in absentia ‘for the time being’ – is markedly, if not remarkably lacking. It’s not for want of trying, mind; on tonight of all nights, the great Danes put on not one, but two shows. “We always really wanted to try and support ourselves” says Wohlert in tones so deadpan, so as to disconcert. Seeing Noel Gallagher do so at the Royal Albert Hall last week “confirmed [their] belief” that it could be a good idea, and so it transpires to prove tonight.

Wohlert, the evening’s self-elected spokesperson, confesses it’s “nerve-racking,” before confirming the many benefits to be taken from this rare opportunity to “rediscover some little gems from our past.” As such, a scintillating introductory half-hour comprises recomposed presentations of the lesser-sighted likes of Behind the Drapes and Why Are You Looking Grave? – songs that, over time, have gone from strangers to friends, before reverting to strangers, only to eventually return to our collective consciousness, warmly welcomed back into hearts and minds likewise on nights like these.

It’s a so-called “curveball” – aka a superlative acoustic take on Water Slides – which sets this set apart, however; nimbly interwoven, ligneous narratives carving a pathway for the forever-cherubic Jonas Bjerre’s seraphic vocal to waltz through, all the way toward the very fore. It’s the sort of segment that doesn’t so much make audible the dropping of pins as the soles of Wohlert’s blackened Converse slapping the stage underfoot, with their doting audience rapt during the songs, and rapturous thereafter. “It’s cosy, it’s a pleasure” reassures Johan, but up until this point, the pleasure is most certainly ours; this a triumph for the five men seen onstage, and that in spite of their neglecting to dredge up the acoustically tinged and eccentrically fringed I Should Have Been a Tsin-tsi (For You)…

Now, this isn’t to say that henceforth, they flatter to deceive, nor disappoint; it’s merely that their unprecedented “support[ing]” themselves – an opportunity that, as Wohlert joshes, they simply “couldn’t turn down” – ensures the mystique commonly associated with the headliner is lost a little. The unrestrained rapture that would otherwise greet them is dampened, with anticipation dwindling slightly as a prolonged turnover period detracts from the perceptibly momentous sense of occasion.

Nevertheless, there remain moments of irrefutable brilliance regardless, such as the creepy crawl of She Spider or the slowly ascending crescendi of Comforting Sounds, which bring proceedings to a quintessentially lugubrious conclusion. As has been the way for some while, however, it’s the two musical diptychs that are Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy and Am I Wry? No / 156 – the latter the opening salvo of Frengers – that inspire nonpareil euphoria: for all the projected imagery of Hadean choristers, seen on the screen beyond the band, we become a living, breathing alternative at times, so long as our mortal breaths haven’t been taken altogether; 156 especially is the sort of song to make you despise “goodbyes,” being the abiding signifier of the show’s impending demise…

But it’s shows like this one which best exhibit how weird, as well as wonderful, a band Mew have become: attired in industrialised darkness, à la All Saints’ ’09 lookbook, varicoloured projections of feline violinists and slender giraffes parade around the background; quite the contrast, and a quite discombobulating one at that, truth be told. There is then the fact that the bizarro, aptly blizzard-like Snow Brigade is bolstered by a bridge redolent of turn-of-the-century trance; that, at turns, the slap-back Strat of Making Friends recalls everything from The Flaming Lips to lip-synced R&B, thus seeming more mangled ‘drivetime’ than Driving Home for Christmas; that the majority of tonight’s setlist was selected by fans of the band from an online shortlist. Perhaps somewhat predictably, She Came Home for Christmas – more readily associable with Shaftesbury Avenue than Shoreditch – garnered the most votes. One vocally disgruntled gig-comer unseasonably shouts for Beach throughout – a good shout, albeit one which falls on deaf ears – but they’re a committed bunch, to which many a mighty impressive singalong attests.

As for Mew, they’re a commensurately staunch brigade; they keep to Red Bull and Coke of the Diet, rather than the white, snowier varietal, for the duration. And, whilst Madsen’s energy may be a lamentable absentee, the rougher, more readily rocky a sound to which we’re treated tonight is most welcome; one that’s as peppy as any narcotic, or caffeinated libation could ever be.