Mike And The Mechanics With Ben McKelvey - York

Singer/Songwriter Ben McKelvey has landed the prestigious support slot on the Mike and the Mechanics tour.

The last time I saw Ben he was supporting The Overtones at the end of last year. He will probably be more appreciated by tonight's audience in York than The Overtones fans, as his music was most likely overlooked by the largely female audience who only want to see The Overtones. This was a point not missed by McKelvey who thanked the audience for coming early and listening to him and supporting new music.

Performing an accomplished set he really couldn't have tried harder to impress the Mechanics fans. Mind you, it is easy with tracks such as In the Morning, Sunday and Stay Young. Accompanied by percussionist Marc, it was a great start to the night. The exposure on this tour can only do him good.

The tour is visiting a lot of towns and cities that live acts do not normally visit. Rather than the fans coming from afar to see the show the tour visits some far flung places but ends up at the more familiar Royal Albert Hall in London.

Mike Rutherford has a superb set of musicians in The Mechanics, a talented group, they make it look so easy. With a new album, Let Me Fly coming out in April they performed some new tracks off the album with The Best Is Yet To Come and Looking For The Highlife (performed acoustically) sounding promising.

Tim Howar possesses a fine singing voice and he did a great job of singing the songs that Sad Cafe vocalist Paul Young used to perform. Young had such a strong stage presence, but the version of All I Need is A Miracle was equally as good in York and Howar's youthful energy did justice to the original version.

"What was the name of your school band?" asks Howar to Andrew Roachford. "Roachford" comes the reply. He then asks Rutherford what was the name of his school band "Genesis" he simply replies, which leads into the band performing the Genesis track, Land of Confusion. It was a well staged link but they made it seem quite spontaneous.

The title track of the new album, is a slow ballad sung by Roachford, which was perfectly placed for Beggar on a Beach of Gold. It is easy to forget that Roachford has a solo career so his big hit Cuddly Toy takes the tempo up from the slower tracks.

The Genesis fans had plenty to smile about with I Can't Dance coming mid way through the gig.

With the new tracks out of the way the latter half of the set was a Best Of: Over My Shoulder has stood the test of time, Word of Mouth had the audience on their feet whilst The Living Years was equally as good vocally as the version sung by Paul Carrack.

The various solos during the last song, Word of Mouth would have probably worked better if they had been performed earlier in the set. Their inclusion in the final track seemed misplaced, but apart from that it was a flawless show from some of the best musicians in the world.

The tour returns to Yorkshire on 22 March at Sheffield City Hall.