Forget your anti-ageing cream, it seems playing in a band is all that’s needed to make you feel decades younger. 

Alan Mosca, frontman and bassist with Freddie and The Dreamers, is compere of the Sensational 60s Experience which returns to The Sands Centre in Carlisle next month, this time featuring Herman’s Hermits, Chris Farlowe, Steve Ellis of Love Affair, Union Gap UK and New Amen Corner.

Alan talks of the magical transformation he witnesses every night as musicians in their sixties and seventies cope with the ravages of touring.

“It’s phenomenal. We travel from Great Yarmouth to Cornwall, to Kent, to
Carlisle, down to London… it’s night after night.

“You’re permanently on the road, staying in Travelodges or Premier Inns. You turn up there, exhausted, sometimes after a six or seven-hour journey, and have a shower.

Then there’s always a soundcheck at every venue, and meeting people after the gig, so you can be in there from 4pm until midnight, but nobody ever moans.

“As soon as those guys hear their play-on music and the lights in the
theatre go down, everything goes out of the window, all the aches and pains are absolutely forgotten.

“For the three hours of the show they are transformed back to when they were 18 years old.”

The same can be said for the audience in terms of happy memories being rekindled. And Alan himself is a big fan, he explains.

“They are nostalgia audiences, and
I’m nearly 70 now myself. But once I’ve introduced the next band I could just go back to my dressing room and read the newspaper. In six years of doing this I never have and I never will.

“I stay in the wings and I never get fed up of listening to the same songs and the same bands. That tells you something about the standard of the show. I’m very lucky to get the opportunity to watch these heroes of mine every night.

“There’s nobody bigger than Herman’s Hermits,” he says. “They’ve sold over 75 million records and had 14 hits in America. They average about 200 gigs a year, they never stop working. We try to secure their services every year.”

Alan himself has been with the Dreamers for nearly 40 years, and plenty would love to hear him perform. He’s a compere only for this show and takes his role very seriously, wearing three or four snazzy suits each night he’s doing his job.

“I’m always suited and booted because I’m the one out front, I represent the show. People have paid a lot of money to see the show and it’s insulting them if I walk out in T-shirt and jeans.”

It’s not a surprising statement. The 1960s was an era when everyone had to look good. “Everyone was immaculately dressed, as were the bands,” Alan agrees, illustrating his point through other acts on the bill.

“Steve Ellis from Love Affair was one of the original Mods – he was Roger Daltrey’s best man. He still wears his mohair suit. Union Gap UK wear all the military stuff.”

There’s a running order on the night but Alan insists nobody is top of the bill. 

“Everybody is capable of topping the bill so we don’t have headliners. There are no weak links. Take Chris Farlowe, for example, he’s the most underestimated artist in Britain,” claims Alan. 

“He’s revered by other artists, his best mate is Van Morrison and he’s had songs written for him by the likes of Mick Jagger.”

Many have tried to put their finger on what made the 1960s so special, why there’s so much nostalgia for the decade and its music, why so many acts since have been influenced by what came forth in those astoundingly creative times.

Much of the lasting appeal probably lies in the excitement people experienced as something new swept the nation – and the world. Alan, who now lives in Coventry, was in his home city of Liverpool. The centre of the world at the time.

“When I first saw The Beatles it was like seeing four fellas from outer space,” he recalls. “They wore Italian suits and Cuban heel boots, they got those fabulous haircuts when they’d played in Germany.

“I still get a thrill whenever I’m back in the city. You stand outside The Cavern, where they played, go down the steps and okay, it’s not in exactly the same place as it was but there’s still that excitement.

“People travel from all over the world just to stand outside The Cavern.”

This may not be Liverpool, it may not be The Beatles, but the excitement and thrill will still be there when a night of nostalgia delivered by the original stars comes to The Sands Centre on October 23.

Tickets £28/£26 (plus booking fee) from thesandscentre.co.uk or 01228 633766.