Take That give North East fans a firework clad masterclass with classics, solos and 'bonus' song

Unlike a certain gig up the road that was battered by torrential rain just a few days earlier, thankfully the downpours at Take That were restricted to the big screen during Back for Good, meaning that everyone at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough on Friday went hope not only singing in the streets, but dry.

I’ll set the tone for this review from the get go - nobody does a stadium concert quite like Take That. They deliver the goods time after time after time and, while the This Life tour might be absent of a huge elephant or giant robotic man, it still has all the ingredients to make it not only a stellar production, but a quintessentially Take That one.

While they have some mighty fine pop classics in their arsenal, the now three piece have never been a band that takes themselves too seriously and the tongue in cheek and at times cheesy approach to proceedings raised a smile and evoked plenty of nostalgia, without ever being too corny or saccharine.

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New album tracks Keep Your Head Up and Windows might not be obvious ones to put at the start of the tour setlist but they worked and then gave way to what a essentially a two hour long pop masterclass. Everything Changes, Sure and I Found Heaven catapulted the captive audience right back to the 90s and Shine, arriving earlier on in the night than you might expect, was a reminder of just how successful Take That have been since their comeback in 2006.

For me, two of Take That’s finest songs from their modern era are Patience and The Flood and, hearing them back to back, was absolute gift. Each it’s anthemic in its on way, with both songs lyrically top tier as well and garnished with those soaring TT choruses that have become synonymous with the nation’s favourite boyband.

The surprise addition of earwormingly good recent single You & Me to the setlist was a real bonus and, as much as I’ve always loved Gary Barlow’s debut solo number 1, Forever Love, getting to finally see Mark Owen do his 1997 hit Clementine might have just been the highlight of the whole entire show.

Rivaling it for that accolade for sure was Back for Good, which, for a song that’s now nearly 30 years old, still grabs you as much as it did the first time you heard it back then. A timeless classic.

No song quite issues a call to arms, quite literally, like Never Forget, with arms held aloft in all corners of the stadium as the evening hurtled towards a firework drenched conclusion, courtesy of Rule The World.

In an ideal world, I’m sure every Take That fan, whether they want to admit or not, would love to see all five of the band on stage one more time, but, Jason and Robbie not being there doesn’t mean that Take That concerts are lacking in anything at all.

Gary, Mark and Howard are consummate showmen and, in the case of Take That, three is most definitely not a crowd. This is a trio who are still very much at the top of their game.