AND verily we gathered last night to kneel expectantly in the Electric Church of the Blue Nile, a place of worship wherein the eternal battle between the opposing forces of despair and hope is given wondrous expression in the voice of Paul Buchanan. And lo, it was good.

Larry Salzman's funkateering guitar mastery. The interlocking rhythmic pulses of it all. The way Blue Nile songs always seem to stand poised on the brink of flight, offering you the promise of a russet dawn without using fancy-dan words like ``russet dawn''.

That priceless heckle from Paul Buchanan's sister up in the Buchanan family enclosure . . . ``Mum says: `You're looking thin'.''

Paul's self-deprecating stage manner. ``I keep telling myself this isn't a test,'' he said. Long pause. ``But it is a test.'' Voice from circle: ``You've passed!'' Followed by another voice, this one in the stalls, employing a laconic manner of the sort that used to terrorise English comics in the far-off days of the Glasgow Empire: ``Do you do this for a livin'?''

Yes, they did pass the test. But they don't just do the Blue Nile for a living.

It's heart-stoppingly evident that they, Messrs Bell, Buchanan and Moore, do it because they have to, and all our lives would be the poorer if they didn't.

One thing, though, laddies . . . could you not do it live on stage slightly more often? Every six months, maybe, rather than every six years. Even if you were to do it every six weeks, the magic would remain undiminished. Heck, after all, you're the greatest heart'n'soul, funk'n'roll band in the world. And we get on the good foot and say Amen to that.