THIRTY-five years after their first release, Happy Mondays are back on the road and thrilling crowds up and down the country on their Greatest Hits tour.

Better still, most of the original lineup are on the stage and recreating the old magic that saw the Manchester lads rise from small time local band to stadium fillers enjoying worldwide success.

The set list did indeed span their entire career and included all of the classic tunes you would expect to hear.

Hallelujah and Kinky Afro sounded as good as ever and my personal favourite Step On (and everyone else’s by the reaction of the crowd) was immense.

Bez was in good form patrolling the front of the stage while throwing out his classic dance moves.

Shaun Ryder and the rest of the band mostly kept to the shadows on the smoggy, gloomily lit stage with a bank of lasers that occasionally burst into life supplying the only real colour of the night.

The band may not have been well lit but it was great to hear all of the music that so influenced the dance and rave scene in the late eighties.

The crowd were actually quite a fair spread of the age groups so the appeal of the Monday’s has obviously spread beyond those forty/fifty somethings reliving those heady days way back then.

As many people start to wind down at work and prepare themselves for the party season, it was a great night to get that feeling started and the Happy Mondays are just the band to supply the feel good soundtrack to that.