Phoenix @ Barrowlands, Glasgow, 26 Mar

We begin tonight with The Vegan Leather, the Paisley art-pop hype train that shows no signs of slowing down. It's easy to forget how young a band they are, and there are sections of tonight's set that aren't exactly the most fluid. Yet the band’s finer moments, like debut single Shake It and set-closer This House, more than make up for any growing pains. They also set the theatrical tone for the evening through frontman Gianluca Bernacchi’s dress choices; one minute he's dressed in a Pink Panther-style overcoat (in that it looks like Inspector Clouseau's mac, and is the same colour as the cartoon cat) and the next he's cutting about like a maskless Zorro in a blouse and enormous hat. Don't look away from these guys; you may well miss something great.

And so to Phoenix, who alert an at-best three-quarters full Barras of their arrival with Prince’s Controversy at full blast and a flash of white light. We’re straight into J-Boy and Lasso (signalling a pleasingly varied setlist to come), and it's clear the lighting desk has been set to full ‘Gulf War, directed by RuPaul’ mode. There are spectacular lighting changes and some absolutely brutal drumming from Thomas Hedlund, and it's a truly stunning sight to see and hear.

But then we hit a problem, as frontman Thomas Mars mentions his throat’s playing up. He'll do what he can, but he needs us to sing along. Now, the problem with bringing up your sore throat is it creates a Chekhov’s gun scenario – having placed the doubt in people's minds, we’re awaiting the pay-off. It also brings to light a nagging doubt about Phoenix, that they're almost a little too well-oiled and seamless.

Still, we barrel on into a selection of tracks from across the back catalogue, and for whatever reason, the set does begin to waiver slightly around the half-hour mark. It’s pulled back from the brink by more of those lights from before and a bouncing double whammy of Ti Amo and Armistice. Rome brings the set to a close in a hail of blue and red light – if we didn't think we were three-dimensional beforehand, we do now – and some thunderous noise, and that's that.

Or that would have been that, were it not for the single most outrageous encore we've seen in years. As if to dispel our cynicism, Mars and guitarist Christian Mazzalai are out alone under the spotlights for a stripped-back Countdown, then it's Ti Amo album closer Telefono complete with a mic fashioned from an actual rotary… well, telefono. Next up is a rendition of Happy Birthday for bassist Deck d'Arcy, a full-throated singalong, and a cake festooned with candles. D'Arcy, of course, bags them all first time.

Fior di Latte is next, with some synchronised waving from the crowd that Kim Jong-un would be proud of, before the unimpeachable party banger that is 1901 to close. Or not, as Mars is off into the crowd, seemingly to thank each individual member of the audience. He's then raised up on the crowd’s shoulders, tans half an audience member’s beer, the band cracks into a reprise of Ti Amo, and we’re off into the night in an indie fever dream.

A fantastic ending to a gig with a fantastic opening, this feels like it could, in other circumstances, have been one of the great Barrowlands gigs. Still, it comes close, and as a piece of gig theatre about one man overcoming a tickly cough, it’s truly brilliant.