For this, my fourth gig in four nights, I had to travel to The Witchwood in Ashton Under Lyne. Where might you ask? Trusting my AA route finder I found myself just outside of  Manchester on a lovely day and with plenty of time to spare as well, so manged to get a drink outside the venue and relax for a while. Guess this was lucky  as the rest of the night would be in the sweltering heat inside the venue which unfortunately couldn't keep the doors open due to flats at the back of venue. Was in for a lovely sticky night.

The Witchwood holds around 200, and although I couldn't swear to how many people turned up  it certainly looked busy enough. The veune itself looks a  little bit rough round the edges, but the sound was great and the staff are lovely. First up on stage were Strangedays, a sort of classic blues rock act that reminded me of Free and to see the lead singer  onstage was very reminiscent of early Paul Rodgers. Stragedays certainly proved to be a god opening act for the main attraction that was Jeff Scott Soto.

Jeff as usual on this tour hit the stage with 'Livin' The Life', a great opener and followed up by diving  straight into 'Eyes Of Love', which is far heavier than the recorded version on the  Prism album. Then for all the newer fans from his Soul Sirkus stint  - and there was a few from speaking to people at the show - he played New Position. older fans also had more than enough to keep them happy with plenty of Talisman, material from his  solo albums and even puts in 'Again 2 be Found' from the Humanimal days. Also thrown into the mix was 'Stand Up' and covers galore from Seal's 'Crazy', Prince's 'Purple Rain' and the beautiful 'Love Of My Life' which this reviewer just loves hearing him sing.

This gig, of all those on this current UK trek, seemed a bit low key more relaxed than some of the other shows, which perhaps could be attributed tothe amount of vodka being consumed and the presence of a certain  Mr.  Tony Marshall (Pride/Vaughn/Contagious)in the house! As was mentioned at the beginning of this review the entire gig was extremely stuffy and hot with JSS even managing to let the microphone slip from his hands at one point but that just added to the whole sense of fun surrounding this particular show. Due to curfew restrictions the normal Boogie Knights et closer was binned for the evening and instead those in attendance were treated to Journey's 'Separate Ways'  to round things off.

Ultimately this was a gig I was extremely pleased to have caught and to meet up with  loads of people I'd previously met met on the Soul Sirkus tour just added to what was a very enjoyable night. If more people would come to see Soto at these gigs, then I'm sure he'd be loved by all, he has a ability to play all types of music from the heavier tunes, right down to the ballads and even dicso. His voice doesn't falter in any of them and he has presence on stage that makes him great fun to watch -and not just from my own female point of view- although I'm sure that helps

I'm just so tempted now to fly over to Belfast now that I'm back and writing this. We'll see???