Remembering 'Nights in White Satin', writes Nikita Ramkissoon

When it comes to putting bands and their music into genres and subcategories, the Moody Blues gives classifiers a hard time.

Relative to who's listening, the band - best known for the hit NightsIn White Satin - has been classified as lush pop, art rock, rootsy, punkish, prog-rockers and happy-British-pop. But the younger generation would probably just call them Golden Oldies (they were known as an "oldies act" as early as 1978).

The band was formed in Birmingham in 1964 and struggled to get noticed. They broke onto the scene with their second single, Go Now, which was promoted on TV with one of the first music videos of the pop era.

Eight studio albums, a split, regrouping, and another eight albums later, The Moody Blues were finally inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

Graeme Edge is the only remaining original member of the band that will be performing as part of the British Invasion Tour at Johannesburg's Coca-Cola Dome tonight.

Also in the line-up is the group 10CC, famous for their hit songs Dreadlock Holiday and I'm Not In Love. For a rather soft pop group, their name is said to refer to the once collective potency of these granddads.

Fellow Brits Procol Harum, known for their hit A Whiter Shade of Pale, were also meant to perform, but cancelled due to an injury sustained by the lead singer, Gary Brooker, in Cape Town while celebrating his birthday.

Funny that!

Last week he was heard talking on a local radio talk show, saying that he found touring exhausting and that he didn't know how they had managed to keep up back in the '70s.

We're over a decade into the new millennium but its still great to take a step back to the sounds of the 1970s with some veteran rockers.

Whether you're being coerced into going to the concert by a nostalgic dad or you're just looking for a blast from the past, the Coca-Cola Dome will be a good place to hang out tonight. - Additional reporting by Andrea Nagel