AS soon as you’re out of the pounding rain and through the doors of the Victoria Warehouse, it’s obvious that the venue has been sold way over any sort of sensible capacity.

The O2-endorsed industrial setting is a network of different rooms suited for club nights, and you’re lucky to even get into the main room where the bands are on if you turn up any later than an hour before the headline act comes on.

There’s not even any room on the balcony hanging over the ex-factory hall, and presumably anyone with a decent spec had to camp out overnight.

But you put up with all of this because it’s Foals.

It’s that special band you discovered before they even had an album out, who went on to become one of the biggest guitar bands in the country – way before they were the festival headliners they are today.

As they launch into an opening salvo of On the Luna and Mountain at my Gates, you’re still waiting in the queue to buy a pint despite having been here for about half an hour.

Once you force your way into the main hall – presumably causing a great annoyance to several of your fellow gig goers, but having no other option apart from turning around and going home – a triple header of Olympic Airways, My Number and Black Gold settles you into the swing of things.

There’s a good mix of the old and the new, with the likes of Sunday, Providence, Spanish Sahara, Red Socks Pugie, Exits and In Degrees spanning each of the Oxford group’s five ever-evolving releases so far.

“Let’s see this place go beserk,” calls frontman Yannis Phillippakis as Foals launch into Inhaler.

Of course, the audience obliges and the math rock five-piece depart to a cry of ‘we love you Manchester’.

Returning for an encore with What Went Down, Yannis adds: “This is a sweaty old show, but the sweatier the better.”

Indeed, it’s hard to tell whether the special effects guy is still using his smoke machine or whether there is a just loud of sweaty steam hanging over the Victoria Warehouse, such is the heat in the room – worsened by everyone turning up in their coats in order to avoid being battered by precipitation, despite it apparently being June.

Closing with a riotous rendition of Two Steps Twice, it’s clear that Foals are still the same band you saw on the bottom of the bill supporting Bloc Party and the Cribs in 2007.

They’re the same band you and your mates followed religiously when you were at sixth form.

But they’ve grown, and you’ve grown with them – and that’s ok.