Time cannot taint the timbre of Mick Hucknall's bluesy, soulful pipes.

Mick Hucknall has come quite a long way since forming The Frantic Elevators in the 1970s. His subsequent outfit Simply Red became arguably Britain's biggest-ever soul-pop act - their potent brew of soul, R&B and pop has sold more than 50 million albums over 25 years.

So, when the Mancunian decided that enough was enough, he decided to end the band in style with a world tour, including Singapore as one of their destinations.

The concert here opened with the unfamiliar sight of the once-dreadlocked orange-haired Hucknall sporting short hair and the unfamiliar sound of Out On The Range from his Life album.

But the man showed he had not lost the timbre in his voice - a raspy, growlish, blues wail that drips with a soulfulness not far from Daryl Hall territory.

As he progressed to more familiar songs such as Your Mirror, the near-capacity Singapore Indoor Stadium crowd also began to warm up. Not least also because of Kenji Suzuki's sparkling jazz-fusion guitar riffs and Ian Kirkham's alto-saxophone solo on Thrill Men, aptly propped up by bassist Steve Lewinson's thick grooves.

Hucknall, ever the teasing entertainer, was clearly working the crowd till it was time to party.

His tactic of throwing in lesser-known songs before launching into a famous hit continued. From To Be With You and Enough from the A New Flame album, Kirkham's splendid soprano saxophone solo cut into the more well-known For Your Babies, from the acclaimed Stars album.

Hucknall's gentle touch in his phrasing on this popular tune made it one of the warmer moments of the concert.

This was followed by the monster hit, 1988's Holding Back The Years, which the crowd could feel was a signal that the party was about to begin. True enough, the music flowed fast and furious from this point.

Fans started to dance to It's Only Love, Sunrise (written to the sample of Hall & Oates' classic I Can't Go For That) and the very Stax-Motownish The Right Thing.

At Ain't That A Lot Of Love, fired up by Kirkham's ferocious tenor sax solo, everyone got up from his seat and rushed to the front of the stage to boogie.

The hits flowed on, bolstered by Pete Lewinson's infectiously funky drumming, from 1985 debut album Picture Book's Money Too Tight (To Mention) and Something Got Me Started, to the carnival-like rhythms of Fairground.

During these obvious karaoke moments, Hucknall held the mike out to the audience and a wall of sound of fans' voices emerged.

In the obligatory encore, he hurled out the mike once again for a thunderous communal rendition of Stars and Simply Red's biggest hit, If You Don't Know Me By Now, a pop classic by R&B legend Harold Melvin.

At the end, the audience, mesmerised by good memories and down-memory-lane music, were raucous, gleeful and totally spellbound. Before Hucknall sauntered off the stage, he sang, slightly cheekily: 'We'll meet again some sunny day... perhaps maybe.'