Last time Mac DeMarco was in town - six years ago to the month - it would've been unthinkable that he'd ever leave it so long between visits.

Ever since his first appearance in Manchester, opening for DIIV at the Deaf Institute in November of 2012, he'd made a mockery of the slacker rock tag often applied to him on account of his hazy, minimalistic brand of songwriting; he toured constantly up to 2019, playing everywhere from the Roadhouse to the Apollo, via Victoria Warehouse and even Parklife.

In the process, he made a slew of records, including the modern classic likes of 2, Salad Days and This Old Dog, albums that turned him into one of the 21st century's great indie rock cult figures.

Then, the pandemic hit, and a host of strange things happened. First, DeMarco cleaned up his act, giving up everything from booze to coffee to cigarettes - the latter once unthinkable, given he has literally written love songs to his preferred brand of smokes.

Around the same time, a new generation discovered him via TikTok, sending his streaming figures into the stratosphere, and affording him both a long break from the road and the opportunity to release whatever he liked, including an instrumental album, Five Easy Hot Dogs, and 2023's mammoth, 199-track collection One Wayne G.

All of which is to say that there's almost an air of trepidation in the air tonight (November 14) - what to expect from the one-time clown prince of the indie world, now that he's sober and treading a more experimental path?

The crowd is presumably not going to be asked to "kneel for Neil", as was the case at The Ritz in 2014 when DeMarco delivered an absurd cover of fellow Canadian Neil Young's 'Unknown Legend'.

And neither is he likely to arrive as he did at the Albert Hall in 2015, by moonwalking onto the stage in an unsettlingly lifelike Michael Jackson mask.

And it is, sure enough, a mellower DeMarco who rolls up at Aviva Studios' cavernous Warehouse tonight, although he promises both "loud songs and soft songs" as he tells the audience to "make yourself at home".

There's plenty of new material from his latest album, Guitar; a bare-bones, near-acoustic affair on record, he transforms the likes of opener 'Shining' and the haunting 'Phantom' into soft rock jams with the help of his five-piece band.

Inevitably, though, the older songs are what really ignite the crowd; after such a long time away, you get the sense that many in attendance tonight are at their first-ever DeMarco show.

'For the First Time' is an early misfire - played too fast, the percussion too snappy - but after that, he settles down, and 'Salad Days' inspires a mass singalong, as does 'The Stars Keep on Calling My Name'.

"You're making an old man feel young again," he says. DeMarco is only 35, but there's no question that songs about youthful misbehaviour, like 'Passing Out Pieces', are imbued with a certain pathos now, and a gorgeous slow version of 'Ode to Viceroy' - on which he pledged to smoke his favourite cigarettes "til I'm dying" - is almost mournful for his old ways.

Which is not to say that the old Mac has been consigned to history; he is on playful form tonight, and perhaps nothing sums up his signature balancing act between mirth and melancholy better than when he performs an impressive handstand in the middle of heartbreak ballad 'Another One', as his guitarist Daryl Johns plays a yearning solo.

It's proof that this new DeMarco - fitter, happier, more productive - remains as mischievous as ever. Expect more of the same when he returns to the Studios tonight.