Making up for lost time, the Trinidadian-British stalwart unfurls rubber-funk smashes and slow-jam balladry to party-stomper effect with a measured stateliness.

How has it taken Billy Ocean so long to grace the vaunted courtyard of The Piece Hall?

The Trinidadian-British stalwart, a seventies-soul survivor-turned-eighties R&B juggernaut, is the kind of artist that so often forms the bedrock of the summer concert season in Calderdale that it registers as something of a shock that he has not brought his blend of rubber-funk smashes and slow-jam balladry to bear upon Halifax’s most prestigious venue before now.

Clearly, the veteran star is making up for lost time.

This is the second of two dates over a baking July weekend where the seventy-six-year-old has played to energetic crowds, SOLD OUT signs plastered across posters that hang from sandstone walls.

With progression for England secured through to the FIFA World Cup semi-finals, and the tail-end of another heatwave ebbing its way back towards more pleasurable climates, he arrives to a genial party mood ready to let their hair down, and duly delivers over a ninety-minute-plus romp across the bulk of his singles catalogue.

Billy Ocean took to the stage for a second sold-out night.

placeholder image — Billy Ocean took to the stage for a second sold-out night.

Flanked by a two-tier arrangement of musicians dressed in glittery black and purple velvet - and himself in a deep cream-white suit two buttons away from a lush Death on the Nile adaptation - Ocean remains remarkably preserved in voice half a century on from his breakthrough.

If the sly limberness of One World may not be reflected in his own steps, his measured stateliness gives further gravitas to his tones; Love Really Hurts With You and Red Light Spells Danger are given soft-synth furnishes to their respective bounciness, while Suddenly holds up its lovelorn grooves with a craggy, almost anguished gentleness.

Naturally though, the party-stompers generate the biggest responses; an effervescent Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, a dexterous Loverboy, the sheer-sugar headiness and joy behind When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going.

“Halifax, do you want to hear some more?” cries Ocean before closer Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) - with its top-sampled falsetto and horn-drenched hooks - sends everybody home happy, into the evening twilight.

The colour of his love remains undimmed.