This was an evening of sheer quality, musically and visually. The packed house at the New Theatre clearly consisted, from its age profile, of many who had followed this influential band through the more than four decades of its existence. No one, I think, could have been disappointed with the superb show that was offered. When you go to see the Moodies, it is the Moodies that you get — no backing band to pad out the evening, but more than two hours of the outfit you have paid to see. Three members survive from the band's sixties' heyday: lead guitarist and singer Justin Hayward, bass guitarist and singer John Lodge, and drummer Graeme Edge. Actually, Graeme, too, took to the foreground at one point as a singer — to the delight of the crowd — though the result had rather more to do with the spoken word than song.

Joining the line-up, to guarantee the classic multi-textured Moodies sound, were a brace of keyboard players — one of whom also played the flute so necessary on a number of songs which had featured the great Ray Thomas — and a second drummer. This athletic gentleman, seated behind a kit of more impressive dimension than Graeme's, clearly took inspiration from the Keith Moon school of drumming.

With so large and impressive a back catalogue, the Moodies could, one supposes, have entertained the crowd for many hours. Judicious selection, however, brought us some of the band's timeless classics (including Nights in White Satin, The Question and Isn't Life Strange?), interspersed with more recent songs, less well-known but no less high quality. In this second category was Justin Hayward's lovely December Snow, from 2003’s December album. "That's great," said a woman sitting behind me. "Must get the CD."

Simultaneously, the cover image of this recording was being displayed on a huge screen at the back of the stage. Throughout the show, this was filled with fascinating archive images of the band down the years. In one, I was amused to see, they were being interrogated by Val Singleton on what was presumably Blue Peter. Bands took advantage of plugs where they could get them in those days!