England won, the sun was shining and Toots Hibbert was in town. There won't be many happier nights in Brighton this year.

A man who began singing in a church choir only to later serve an 18-month prison sentence, his honeyed growl of a voice has always struck a perfect balance between the spiritual and the profane.

He enjoyed his heyday in the Sixties and Seventies as reggae, the music to which the band gave its name, mutated from ska into rocksteady.

Hibbert relaunched the group in the Nineties and his reputation has remained so strong he had the likes of Keith Richards and Eric Clapton queuing up to collaborate with him on 2004's True Love album.

Though still sporting that dreadful denim waistcoat, he had mercifully ended his flirtation with leather trousers.

Still full of boundless energy at the age of 60, he worked the crowd with more gusto than a stadium rock frontman and the whole room was quickly bellowing along to the magnificent Pressure Drop.

The sound levels were frustratingly low, a problem which wasn't properly rectified, despite repeated calls from the crowd to "turn it up", but the audience made more than enough noise to fill in the gaps.

Thankfully, the likes of Monkey Man, Funky Kingston and especially Take Me Home Country Roads are perfect material for a drunken singalong.

A wonderful extended take on 54-46 That's My Number brought the set to a joyous close. So good people would still have come out smiling even if England had lost.