THE OVERTONES
BRIDGEWATER HALL, MANCHESTER

WHEN a sell-out crowd at the seated Bridgewater Hall is on its feet before the act even comes on, you know you are in for a good night.

And The Overtones’ audience stayed on its feet for most of the 90 minute, feel-good concert which featured songs from the group’s three albums.

The fivesome put their own twist on much-loved classics, such as Del Shannon’s Runaway, Marty Wilde’s Teenager in Love, the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On, Fairground Attraction’s Perfect and Neil Sedaka’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, which showcased Lachie Chapman’s deep, bass voice and had the mostly female crowd whooping for more.

Looking around the venue and there was a mix of women singing along – girlie groups, mums and daughters, pensioners and grandchildren, and a young woman nearby who was as ecstatic as a teenager at a One Direction concert.

The vocal harmony group certainly knows how to perform for their audience, charming throughout, right down to their synchronised moves and microphone grabs.

It would be easy to write them off as a good-looking covers band but there is no denying the quality of their own material, with original tracks including Superstar, Loving The Sound and Gambling Man, the fantastic first single from the doo-wop, boy band’s debut album.

Displaying their usual tight and polished vocals, there was a host of famous film songs from their latest album, Saturday Night at the Movies, including Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman, The Bare Necessities/I Wanna Be Like You, from The Jungle Book, and Hit The Road Jack, which features soul diva Beverley Knight on the album.

Lachie, Timmy Matley, Mark Franks, Mike Crawshaw, Daz Everest sure know how to give their fans a treat, jumping down into the crowd and serenading, hugging and kissing various audience members to the sounds of Frank Sinatra’s It Had to Be You.

The Overtones have some seriously dedicated fans who travel the length and breadth of the country to watch them perform and then queue to meet them afterwards, with merchandise in hand, including £15 programmes and aprons.

But you get the feeling this appreciative audience would be happy to pay much more for the chance to meet and get a cheeky kiss from the British-Irish fivesome.

The story goes that they were discovered while singing, working as painters and decorators in London, and the lads did certainly seem appreciative of the warm reception they received in Manchester.

As they came back out on stage for an encore of Do You Love Me?, from Dirty Dancing, I think the crowd’s resounding answer was ‘yes’.