What's this, you ask? The Spiders From Mars playing a concert in the Olympia Theatre on the eve of David Bowie's gig at the same venue? Is this a coincidence? Divine intervention? Or is Bowie's old band following him around in the hope of a superstar reunion? Last night, the two surviving Spiders, bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Woody Woodmansey, were joined onstage by Joe Elliot and Phil Collen from Def Leppard in a bizarre tribute to the late Mick Ronson, guitarist extraordinaire who played with Bowie on such albums as Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.

Ronson died of cancer some years ago, but the Spiders From Mars had disintegrated long before that, when Bowie announced his "retirement" onstage at Earls Court in 1973. The Spiders circa 1997 sound like nothing more than a solid pub rock band: there's the old workhorse rhythm section, grizzled but still able to give it loads; there's the rock star vocalist on a busman's holiday, having a great time singing his favourite songs onstage; and there's the heavy metal axe hero, cruising through some of the finest riffs in rock music and sounding like a hybrid of Ronson and Reeves Gabrels. The picture is completed by the phallically-named Dick Decent on keyboards, who gives a dazzling display of fingerwork on Life On Mars.

The whole thing would be a bit sad if there wasn't a noble cause behind it, and Elliot explains to the audience: "The reason we're doing this, apart from the fact that we love the music, is that next Saturday in Hull is the second annual memorial concert for Mick Ronson, and we'll be playing it."

For Joe Elliot, this is the fulfilment of a life-long dream, i.e. getting to sing Rock 'N' Roll Suicide and All The Young Dudes with Bowie's original band. For the rest of us, it was a chance to see a real superstar tribute band.