EVERY gig-goer knows the thrill of discovering a new band, and then bragging about it for years after when that act makes it big.

But there is something deliciously comforting about sticking with what you know. Call it a guilty pleasure, but we can’t resist getting down to the music of our youth.

So while the year ahead, see feature above, offers plenty to those seeking new talent, there are also plenty of bands who you might have assumed had stopped doing their thing years ago, who are calling in for more of the same.

Perhaps the coolest is Fun Lovin’ Criminals, the New York funksters, fronted by the effortlessly smooth Huey Morgan, who come to run through their classic 1996 album Come Find Yourself (O2 Academy Oxford, February 11) For more blasts from the past, also check out Northern Irish punks Stiff Little Fingers (O2 Academy, February 25), Scouse neo-psychedelia pioneers The Icicle Works (O2 Academy, April 22), and Mike Peters and The Alarm (O2 Academy, May 21), who mark the 30th anniversary of their second album Strength.

Then there’s the near-legendary Gordon Lightfoot (New Theatre, May 25) who plays his first live shows since 1985, and those 80s survivors Level 42 – featuring the sultan of the slap bass himself, Mark King (New Theatre, October 16).

For something a bit cooler, there is the revitalised Reef (O2 Academy Oxford, March 5), Liverpool’s finest The Coral (O2 Academy Oxford, March 15), Space (O2 Academy Oxford, April 15), and The Bluetones (O2 Academy Oxford, May 4) – still fronted by Mark Morriss, and getting stuck into their 20th anniversary tour.

*When it comes to blasts from the past, they don’t get much bigger than The Kinks.

Admirers of the band get a chance to rock along to some of their greatest hits courtesy of frontman Ray Davies’s musical Sunny Afternoon. TheWest End multi Olivier award-winning hit musical comes to the New Theatre, Oxford, from January 31-February 4, 2017.

Go to atgtickets.com