The obvious joke? On the New Theatre stage on Tuesday night, there were but 2.5cc — Graham Gouldman being the only member of the 1970s super-group performing. And the bass player was never the lead vocalist on the original group’s hits. That said, Rick Fenn on lead guitar and drummer Paul Burgess have been performing under the 10cc banner for many years.

But Gouldman’s fingers are all over 1960s and ’70s pop and a packed audience paid proper tribute.

Question: who wrote For Your Love for The Yardbirds? Or Bus Stop for The Hollies? And Herman’s Hermits’ No Milk Today? No prizes. Who was a post-Wayne Fontana ‘Mindbender’? Gouldman really does not look like a man who was penning classic hits in 1965, so why should he not permit himself an acoustic half-hour of his own non-10cc hits to set the concert up?

He was joined for that by Fenn, Mike Stevens and Mick Wilson — all virtuoso guitar players in their own right — before the latter two went back to their keyboards and percussion set-ups respectively for the main part of the evening: 90 minutes of 10cc’s greatest hits. Yes, we all knew what we were waiting for, but they held it back until close to the end.

Before the monster hit, we were presented with Wall Street Shuffle and that excellent pop song The Things You Do For Love, Fenn providing regular guitar virtuosity. Phil Spector may have created the original ‘Wall of Sound’, but 10cc did it all over again in the 1970s, and the New Theatre acoustics delivered the band’s harmonies, keyboard and guitar ‘whoosh’ precisely.

And then we swooned to I’m Not In Love, stood up for Dreadlock Holiday, were surprised by the Beatles’ Across The Universe and rocked to 10cc’s first No. 1, Rubber Bullets, from June 1973.

One quarter of the original act went a long way.