It’s a couple of years since I last saw Mike & the Mechanics in Ipswich and for this tour they again have Andrew Roachford (Cuddly Toy) and Tim Hower on vocals upfront and Mike Rutherford on melodic lead guitar.

It’s 25 years since The Living Years and this tour is to celebrate that anniversary.

It was great to see the Corn Exchange packed on a Monday night, the crowd ready for an evening of classic AOR. The band played some songs I’ve never heard them do live before.

Get Up was really well received and got us joining in with the bouncing. Try To Save Me also went down well.

But it was the songs from the anniversary album that people had come to hear and they were not disappointed. Can You Hear Me Calling had us singing every word and had a great solo from Mike.

The evening had a real pace to it, which is the mark of a good band, and it seemed to come to an end too soon.

But not before they played us the Genesis classic Turn It On Again and went into the encore. I’m sure these songs are going to be around for at least another 25 years.

Mark Westall