The Fermain Tavern had a send-off in style last Saturday.

The live room is now closed for refurbishment, due to open with a new layout in September. What that will entail and the result of the revamp will be eagerly anticipated by tavern patrons and gig-goers alike.

But back to the Saturday night, and The Family Mahone played a stormer – regaling the many there with their raggle-taggle epic sounds.

Earlier in the day I had the pleasure of being in the company of the band’s main vocalist and drummer DJ Mahone, aka BBC Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe, and he told me, over beer and cheese, how much the band were enjoying their short stay in the island.

‘It’s been very friendly, we’ve been very well looked after,’ said Radcliffe, while tucking into a cheese and pickle baguette.

‘Derrick and Helen [Williams, from the Rawcuz Crowzz] have been ferrying us about and looking after us. They’ve had to get a special drum kit as I play a funny drum kit, a cocktail kit, that has come from China to Germany to here – almost half the way round the world to get here.’

At this point a rotund and ruddy-faced Russ ‘Rusty’ Mahone, the band’s accordion player, interrupted Radcliffe and me to show us his recent purchase. Beaming with pride, it was a tweed-style suit ‘from a charity shop in the Town’ that he’d got for £5 – bargain.

‘Look at that, how quality is that?’ beamed Rusty.

‘Are you christening it tonight on stage, Russ?’ asked Radcliffe.

‘If it fits me without too major a refit…’

‘Well, you don’t want anything that doesn’t fit you,’ said Mark, smirking sideways and referring to Rusty’s ample beergut.

‘This is Rusty. It’s sort of down to him that we’re here because he was the initial point of contact.

‘Someone said earlier that my people are talking to your people, but unfortunately my people is a p***ed-up accordion player. My person had to be relieved of the job.’

Rusty sauntered off with his purchase, still grinning and probably wondering where he could get hold of a seamstress before the gig that night.

On the subject of life with The Family Mahone and the joys of being in a band, Radcliffe explained: ‘I always wanted to be in a band ever since I saw The Monkees on the telly as a kid.

‘The way they were all dressed in the same shirts and went around together in a car and had adventures in different places made me think “that looks like a good life” – and it has been. We’re in Guernsey, staying at a nice hotel, having a few pints.

‘We’re playing our music, which we love doing. It’s great. I’ve been doing this for 12 years with the same guys.’

I asked Radcliffe about his time in comedy covers band The Shirehorses, a parody of The Seahorses (ex-Stone Roses John Squire’s short-lived band) that he fronted with his radio co-host Marc ‘Lard’ Riley in the 90s.

‘It was good fun. We played the [Manchester] NEC, played with Blur. It was bonkers.

‘You became bigger than the real thing [The Seahorses] didn’t you?’ I said.

‘I know, crazy to think. It was great that it took off that way. People ask us all the time if we’d get The Shirehorses back together again, but it was a moment in time.

‘It would be most unseemly to be doing that at our age.’

The gig on the night was, as expected, a riotous affair.

Earlier in the evening The John Wesley Stone held court at the top of the bar with their hillbilly country thrash, with fiddler player Jess making an appearance halfway through their set, hotfooting from the airport after being stuck in France.

No sooner had they finished and the sound of Radcliffe’s familiar Bolton twang could be heard over the stage PA beckoning people to the downstairs area. From the off, the crowd were encouraged to get on their feet and cheer Crackerjack-style every time DJ Mahone announced, ‘a drinking song’, which inevitably was every song.

And the tunes came thick and fast, Beer and Cheese, Cringle Fields, and a folky The Boys are Back in Town had everyone jigging along.

Although they have tongues firmly in cheek about themselves, they are serious players. It was top-notch stuff. Dave ‘Doc’ Mahone is a mean fiddler and banjo player. Rusty is anything but on the accordion, and Radcliffe is a dab hand on the skins.

The encores were inevitable. ‘We’ve nowhere else to go so we might as well do some more,’ said Radcliffe as the band stood in the corner of the room.

Doc sang a delightful version of Lindisfarne’s Meet Me on The Corner before the band launched into a rousing Sally Maclennane by the Pogues. It all made for a glorious noise.

And we sang them a song of times long gone, hoping we’d be seeing them again. Oh, and Rusty looked dapper in his snuggly-fitting suit. Bargain.