IN their black suits and ties they look like they’re heading for a pall-bearers convention. Get evergreen sixties pop veterans The Searchers on a stage though and they instantly become the life and soul of the party.

At the Tivoli on Saturday they launched the opening night of an on-off tour that will take them half way round the world and keep them on the road for more than six months.

With an energy and passion that would elude men half their age, Searchers originals John McNally and Frank Allen (both in their late sixties) led the band through a blaze of hits.

Classics like Sweets For My Sweet, Needles and Pins, Don’t Throw Your Love Away and When You Walk In The Room had fans old and new singing along in delight.

Their were also some lesser known treasures from The Searchers extensive back catalogue - almost forgotten album tracks, B-sides and other rarities that visited the works of everyone from Bob Dylan to Del Shannon and The Rolling Stones Completing the band’s line-up was long time singer-guitarist Spencer James who’s been a Searcher for a mere 25 years and new boy drummer Scott Ottaway. Scott signed up last year replacing regular sticksman Ed Rothe who left the band to spend more time with his fiancee the singer Jane McDonald.