The knickers began flying through the air even before Tom The Voice appeared on stage. Mainly white and oddly sensible they were - hardly a G-string in their midst. Ladies at the back passed them forward, row by row, cheering as they reached the front. A chap collected them, taking them backstage with a resigned air. There must be a knicker mountain somewhere in the land after a sell-out Tom Jones tour.
Sometimes, of course, Tom handed them back like a prize, having mopped his sweaty, perma-tanned brow or medallioned hairy chest with them first. This only came later, well into the second half of a show that, for all the flying pants, began in perfunctory, slightly muted fashion, but built up into a big flirty party night.
What Tom likes doing best these days, apart from gyrating and rubbing his crotch, are thumpingly funky versions of tracks such as She's Got It, If I Only Knew, You Can Leave Your Hat On and Kiss - even though the real crowd-pleasers are his crooning glories: Green Green Grass of Home, Delilah, and It's Not Unusual. Even the golden oldies are now imbued with lashings of sauce. During What's New Pussycat?, Tom licked his lips, crushed panties in his big, big hands and sniffed his fingers.
As a sex symbol, Tom cuts a surreal figure. In sombre, well-cut suits, he dances like an older relative at a wedding except that when he lifts a leg and waggles his behind, the gesture is greeted with deafening whoops. But the weirdest thing is that his face has been so thoroughly lifted that not a line, not a wrinkle graces it. This means he doesn't look his 60 years; in fact, he doesn't look any age. There is no expressive quality to his face other than from his eyes - and he flirted with the audience by opening them wide, bulging them out from the uncreased landscape they sit in. It didn't exactly have me reaching for my smalls.
Musically, there are several challenges for Tom, all of which he meets with relish. He blends old and new, his own songs and covers (including an unlikely contender, Macy Gray's Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak), with plenty of offerings from Reload, his album of duets. Sex Bomb, sounding even more like Sex Bum live, has him in a 360-degree spin of gyration, jumping on the spot, clenched fists in the air.
He does what he can to cover up for the absence of his famous singing partners, relying on The Voice alone to get him through INXS's Never Tear Us Apart and Elvis Presley's You're Right, I'm Left, She's Gone. One of his very slinky backing singers helps out on Burning Down the House and You Need Love Like I Do. But you can't help missing the guest vocalists, so the brief appearance of Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics, for Mamma Told Me Not To Come, was especially welcome. He didn't look comfortable, though - he sneaked a peek out, saw a tide of undies, and sang looking at Tom or with his back to the crowd.
Tom is so used to the response, he takes it all in his stride, grinning. He was not at ease with himself, though. His shirt collar was bothering him in the second half - he kept tugging at it mid-song - and he so hates the fact that he sweats that he had a special gesture for dealing with it. Wiping waves of it off (when there were no knickers available) with a flick of his hand, he sends the sweat away with a curt movement, trying to make it sexy - and failing.
He does the super-sexy routine compulsively through the evening, even wiggling a long, suggestive bit of his belt for his Full Monty song. The audience - as if out on a big, wild hen night - lap this all up, egging him on. One woman stands at the front, alone in her good behaviour. She has a Welsh dolly in her hand; she makes it dance for Tom during the encores. In a sea of saucy laciness by this point, he doesn't even notice.
• Touring nationally.
