IF you missed the Incredible String Band in Beaufort at the end of 2003, you can catch them in Bristol in 2004.

The legendary, psychedelic 60s' folk band are in concert in the Fleece and Firkin on Thursday, April 22.

Next year the band will celebrate 40 years since their inception in Scotland, and it would be hard to over-estimate the influence they've had on popular music.

Their first five albums, including the wonderful The 5,000 Spirits, or the Layers of the Onion and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, were a turning-point for many.

Everyone from John Lennon to Robert Plant to Neil Tennant has cited them as a major influence; the Led Zep man calling them "a sign". Indeed, to play The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is to cross the threshold into a different world.

The hallucinatory clarity of childhood memories is mingled with mythic tableaux and pantheistic prayers.

The album propelled them into the Top Five of the British album charts, and they were the fourth best-selling band behind The Beatles, Cream and The Rolling Stones.

Their appearance at Woodstock confirmed them as 'brand leaders', and a film, Be Glad For the Song Has No Ending, captured them in full flight... With the advent of 2003 a prestigious US tour was pencilled in, as well as dates in the UK and on the Continent, plus the ISB's Icelandic concert debut!

By this time, however, Williamson had withdrawn from touring with the band, to concentrate on his many solo projects.

The remaining line-up of Heron, Palmer and Dando was augmented by the singer and multi-instrumentalist Fluff, and, respecting Williamson's absence, the band name was changed to incrediblestringband2003.

The centrepiece of the new repertoire is likely to be Heron's 13-minute epic, A Very Cellular Song, unperformed in its entirety since 1968, and regarded by many as the finest flowering of the ISB's genius. The rest of the material performed will mostly come from the much-loved first five albums. The Song, truly, has no ending...