One has to respect Cliff's achievements: 40 years in a business increasingly designed for three-year careers; number one hits in five different decades; recently declared more successful in some way than Elvis. The trouble is, this is the kind of stuff he let's us know about between songs. One could not help feeling that it's fine for him to celebrate 40 years of great entertaining, but he should accept that from here on his audiences just want a bit of harmless nostalgia.
Apart from the sprightly title track, material from his latest album, Real As I Want To Be, was time-serving. Cliff has the back catalogue to produce a sensational concert. Some of it - Dreamin', Move It, Wired For Sound - was sprinkled here and there, but it was only in the final rock 'n' roll medley that the audience really responded wholeheartedly.
Cliff Richard plays Belfast's King's Hall again tonight, then The Point, Dublin, on Monday and Tuesday.