BACK on his home ground Hampshire born sixties star Paul Jones included TV’s Match of The Day theme in a marathon harmonica solo.

It came in extra time at The Manfreds’ Five Faces Tour concert which attracted a capacity crowd and showed why Portsmouth born Jones has repeatedly been the British Blues’ harmonica player of the year.

One of the most iconic bands of the sixties, The Manfreds, who have had many name changes over the years, are celebrating their 50 th anniversary by going back to their musical roots.

They have re-released their first studio album, The Five Faces of Manfred Mann – a mix of blues and jazz numbers - and taken it on the road with a nationwide tour.

Jones teased the audience by saying the album would take up the whole concert.

But they found room to roll out some old favourites from a treasure trove of 15 UK top 20 singles, including Sha-La-La, The Mighty Quinn and Pretty Flamingo.

They dipped into the Five Faces album with the infectious I’m Your Kingpin, Untie Me and the classic Jerome Green number, Bring It To Jerome.

Jones and Gosport born Mike Hugg(keyboards) are the Manfred Mann originals. Lead guitarist Tom McGuinness, of McGuinness Flint fame, joined the band when 5-4-3-2-1 was making its meteoric dash up the charts.

As well as the launching pad to fame for Manfred Mann it was the theme song for the ground breaking TV show Ready Steady Go.

When I’m Dead and Gone, a huge hit for McGuiness Flint, has become Tom’s party piece at Manfred concerts. And his mandolin playing also gives it that WOW factor.

There were also polished performances from Rob Townsend (drums) Marcus Cliffe (bass) and Simon Currie (sax and flute) Jones calmly overcame a battery problem with his microphone power pack and it did not stop the surge of sixties hits.

In a grand finale he led the Fernham Hall massed choir in a rousing chorus of Do Wah Diddy Diddy.

Many of them were probably singing it as they left the car park after their night with The Manfreds.