If there's anything you want in the way of rock 'n' roll nostalgia, the Bootleg Beatles serve it up in bucketloads.

It's hard to imagine that these tribute band moptops have been together for a quarter of a century - more than three times as long as the original Fab Four.

The Beatles recorded their final album 35 years ago. But the bootleg boys enable diehard Beatles fans like me to relive the Sixties magic of the world's most famous band and give younger fans a glimpse of Beatlemania.

Yes, of course we'd rather have been entertained at the Brighton Centre by the genuine John, Paul, George and Ringo, but that was never going to happen, even if Lennon and Harrison were alive today.

But the Bootlegs - David Catlin-Birch as McCartney, Neil Harrison as Lennon, Andre Barreau as Harrison and Hugo Degenhardt as Ringo - do a pretty good interpretation of the original line-up.

They opened the two-and-a-half hour show - the final gig of their UK tour - with I Wanna Hold Your Hand and took us on a magical mystery tour taking in a host of famous Beatles hits.

The packed audience, including three generations of families, was on its feet early on, enthusiastically joining in with lyrics we know and love.

It prompted "John" to say that the Brighton and Glasgow crowds had been "the best singers" on the tour.

It wasn't quite Beatlemania revisited - an attempt at screaming sounded more like a Christmas turkey being strangled. Some of the band's early harmonies were a tad clunky and they laid on the phoney Scouse accents a bit thick.

But they really got into their rhythm as the night progressed and there were rousing versions of All You Need Is Love, Revolution and Hey Jude, culminating in Twist And Shout with everybody doing just that. The highlight for me was Back In The USSR.

Costume changes, including the colourful Sergeant Pepper outfits, were interspersed with clever use of black and white film footage of the Sixites, including Swinging London and the first moon landing.

There was some good humour from the boys too, with "John" complaining during the first set of the very early hits that he couldn't see the audience because "I don't get my glasses until 1966."

The Bootleg Beatles expected to be together for only six months for a Broadway musical but the bookings kept rolling in and they have now become part of the traditional Christmas entertainment in Brighton.

They can never be the Fab Four boys - but Brighton loves then anyway, Yeah, Yeah Yeah!