It’s been a quiet couple of years for The Sleepy Jackson. Just as Luke Steele and co threatened to take the world by storm, everything seemed to grind to a halt. Steele spent time on other projects — making music with Daniel Johns in London and recording Holes in the Valley with side project Nations by the River — there was the less-than-amicable departure of brothers J (bass) and Jules (guitar) Cortez, and a split with former manager Renee Rudolf.

But through all that, Steele managed to find inspiration for the Sleepies’ second album, Personality: One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird. And with its release next month, the band returns to give hometown fans a first taste of the record.

The last time the Sleepy Jackson played to a hometown crowd, the band consisted of Steele, longtime drummer Malcolm Clark and the aforementioned Cortez brothers. As the band take to the stage at the Bakery, Steele and Clarke are joined by a new-look lineup: —former Spencer Tracy frontman Lee Jones on guitar and piano, Dave Symes (Sarah Blasko) on bottom end duties and Presets collaborator Felix Bloxsom on percussion. Within about 10 seconds of opening track God Lead Your Soul, it’s clear this is a totally different band.

In the past, the Sleepy Jackson may all have been about Steele. Yes, he writes the songs and will always be the face of the band. But tonight’s show is much more complete than anything they have done in the past — largely due to the other four men on stage.

Despite the hype surrounding Personality, the hometown crowd is just as eager – if not more -— to hear the band’s earlier material. There’s an air of curiosity as the Sleepies open the set with a bracket of new songs strung together with random samples but the mood rises with Come to This, Bucket of Love and Mourning Rain. With the five-piece band, it feels as though the songs sound like they were always meant to.

But there are more flashbacks to The Sleepy Jackson of old about a minute into Good Dancers. Steele aborts the song before ripping a broken flanger pedal from his pedalboard, throwing it to the ground in disgust. He’s quick to be back to his smiling self, though, as he apologises, offers the remains of the pedal to a front row fan and leads into a second attempt at the song. Needless to say, the 2006 Sleepies put any past airings of the song to shame.

As the set moves past the halfway point, there are few breaks between songs and the new material begins to blend in with Sleepy classics much more smoothly. A few songs still need some work to be effective on the live stage — some of the harmonies and more subtle details are lost in the mix — but considering this is the band’s first show back after such a lengthy absence, this can be excused.

Just like in the opening stages of the show, the highlights of the latter half of the set all come from pre-_Personality_ material. A 10-minute rendition of Pack of Nails keeps everyone guessing:— Clarke destructs his drum kit while Steele hits us with sporadic bursts of random guitar noise. It’s like it’s 2002 all over again (only, without the knife-and-fork stunt)!

By this point, we’ve forgotten about Personality. But along with all his other talents, Luke Steele can read minds. As the set draws toward its close, he pulls out Dream On and You Needed More,— definitely among the new LP’s stronger tracks. Though the acoustic-based tracks from Personality show a maturity only ever hinted at in the past, it’s the Brian Wilson-esque symphonic pop tracks that show why _Personality _fills all the gaps that Lovers left.

Yes, the show is meant to be the unveiling of the new record but as far as everyone in the crowd tonight is concerned, this is a homecoming gig. Despite the band finishing with yet another new song and a cheeky dig at a couple of ex-members (“This is the start of fashion/Not the end” on Play a Little Bit for Love ) it’s no surprise that the inclusion of Glasshouses (2000) and Vampire Racecourse (2003) in the home stretch excites the crowd more. Whether The Sleepy Jackson conquer the world or not remains to be seen, but they’ve proved tonight that they’re better equipped this time around.