After their tune Woke Up This Morning was chosen to be the theme tune for The Sopranos, Alabama 3 should have been catapulted to the kind of fame that brings limos, hotel suites and consultations with Elvis Presley's doctor. Two years on, the band are still playing small venues. However, it's entirely possibly that they used the TV money to bankroll a never-ending tour where they are among "friends" and invariably have packed houses screaming for more.
A bunch of self-confessed former rehab patients from Wales, Yorkshire and Glasgow (although based, occasionally, in Brixton), the band reinvented themselves as a heavily ironic, quasi-religious band from the Deep South, achieving this through sunglasses, cowboy hats and very bad accents. They have been on the road so long that the names The Very Reverend Doctor D Wayne Love and Larry Love probably appear on their passports. The latter (Rob Spragg to his counsellor) sports long hair, cigars and, one suspects, a lifestyle that makes him resemble a deranged Willie Nelson.
Their songs have two main themes: get into a bad mess through drugs (Too Sick to Pray) and achieve redemption through the Lawd (Hypo Full of Love). Both sorts flirt with seriousness the way junkies stumble with the truth. Live, the band flit from the absurd ("Our guitarist, Mr Rob Freebase") to the explosive (the line "Change will come through the barrel of a gun"). In a riotous hour, they namecheck civil rights heroes Dr King and Rosa Lee Parks, and get the whole crowd to raise a left fist for Sinn Féin.
Perhaps their incendiary edge has precluded mass appeal. There's nothing wrong with their music, an inspired mix of Hank Williams and the Happy Mondays. It's possible that they may be ahead of their time, and someday, the blackly humorous likes of U Don't Dans 2 Tekno Anymore will become standards. In the meantime, they're the best live band in the country, so just say yes.
· At the Cockpit, Leeds, tonight. Box office: 0113-243 6743. Then touring.