HUGELY popular sixties band The Searchers are to make an appearance at the Thameside Theatre.

Just weeks after Gerry and The Pacemakers reincarnation, Gerry Cross The Mersey - still fronted to this day by Gerry Marsden - performed to a sell-out crowd on the same stage, another band from the “Merseybeat” scene are coming to town.

And after 50 years of non-stop touring and record sales totalling £50million, the band - whose hits include a remake of the Drifters' 1961 song “Sweets for My Sweet”, remakes of Jackie DeShannon's “Needles and Pins” and “When You Walk In The Room” and an original song written for them called “Sugar and Spice” - have still got it.

Both bassist and frontman Frank Allen and rhythm guitarist John McNally - both ever-presents in the band since the mid 1960s - are still touring with The Searchers.

With a valuable stock of more than a dozen chart entries, multiple much-loved album tracks and a carefully devised presentation in which the music is embellished by fascinating stories of the triumphs and tribulations both enjoyed and suffered by the band en-route to their current standing make the show a highly memorable one.

A sookesman for the group said: “What keeps them going? Simple. The love of what they do, the good health to enable them to do it and an amazingly loyal fan base to ensure them of packed out shows all over the U.K and indeed across the continents.”

The band are often cited as the inspiration to Tom Petty, The Birds, Marshall Crenshaw and Paul Carrack. Needles and Pins was covered by influential American punk band The Ramones.

In 1999, the group supported Sir Cliff Richard in front of a 160,000-strong crowd for a Millennium New Years Eve Concert at the Birmingham Indoor Arena.

Most recently, the band’s 2008 The Very Best of The Searchers placed 11th in the UK Album Chart.

You can catch the band at the Thameside Theatre on Wednesday, June 18, starting at 7.30pm.

For tickets, which are priced at £22, call the box office on 0845 300 5264.