These two bands last toured together in goth's comically excessive 1980s heyday, but today there's a weird disconnect between the Mission's songs about serpents and the chaps with sensible haircuts on stage. Still, as ageing goths clamber on to each other's shoulders, bassist Craig Adams summons up an old spirit when he plays on top of a speaker stack and tumbles to the stage.

Critics tittered when the Cult's 1987 album Electric transformed them from a Bradford-based, quasi-psychedelic goth band who sang about Native Americans into full-on hard rockers who revered AC/DC, but with hindsight they anticipated today's reverence for classic rock. A quarter of a century on, they appear re-energised from the moment ageless guitarist Billy Duffy reels off the riff to Lil' Devil.

The main difference between the Cult then and now is that singer Ian Astbury's Jim Morrison fixation has been allowed to take full flight – he has clearly been affected by taking Mr Mojo Risin's place in a rejigged Doors a decade ago. He wears what may be a living wild animal across his shoulders, and tells the crowd in a mid-Atlantic accent that they are "fuckin' beautiful", that the song The Wolf (from their new album Choice of Weapon) "fuckin' destroys" and ad libs, Morrison-style: "Manchester women, keep away from me!"

When Astbury takes off his sunglasses because "I can't see a thing!" or insists "the heavy blues" originated in his native Wirral it's like watching a parody of a parody. But his charisma and conviction in such elemental hard rock as Wild Flower or the signature anthem She Sells Sanctuary sweeps the audience into a frenzy.

"We fell in love with the music again," he says in a sincere moment. "They tried to kill us so many times." But these former goths are the Draculas of rock: they simply will not die.

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