There’s something truly beautiful about the sight of a bald, pudgy 50-year-old — in this case, 999 frontman Nick Cash — jumping around on stage, shaking his fists, and yelling, " Homicide! " Okay, so no major label is ever going to pour any money into a comeback by these veteran punks, especially after they played for only about 100 people at Providence’s Living Room two weekends ago on a tour that didn’t make it to the Boston area. Beyond that, very little had changed: this band in their heyday never promised more than a good time, and they weren’t going to hit the Northeast for first time in nearly 20 years without delivering one.

Everybody remembers 999 for " Homicide, " a quintessential British punk single and nearly a US crossover hit (a live version started getting commercial airplay in late 1980; then John Lennon was murdered). But the song that sums up the band is another of their British singles, " Feelin’ Alright with the Crew. " With its cockney-accented vocal, its shout-along chorus, and its total simplicity, it revealed what 999 really were: the second coming of Slade.

This month’s show was the third or fourth coming of 999, depending on whether you’ve been keeping up with their sporadic releases on tiny British labels and their even more sporadic US jaunts, which have usually hit just the West Coast. Life has changed since the early ’80s, when they recorded for PolyGram and played the Paradise so often that they were practically the house band. Three-quarters of the original line-up are still together (bassist Danny Palmer is the latecomer), but they look a lot more grizzled and thuggish than I remembered. Their contemporaries the Clash wrote a song called " Bankrobber " ; the guys in 999, on the other hand, make you think they could actually rob a bank.

That didn’t matter once they struck into the first few tunes: they may look different, but the songs sound just as good. The old gems — " Nasty Nasty, " " The Biggest Prize in Sport, " " Let’s Face It, " with its memorable line " The boy can’t make it with girls! " — were as simple and spiffy as ever. Whatever they’ve recorded in the last two decades was largely ignored, though guitarist Guy Days chipped in with one new tune, " I Really Like You, " that like their best oldies consisted largely of repetitions of the title. When they got to " Homicide, " half the audience jumped on stage to shout along, and all involved were feelin’ alright with the crew.