EDDIE Amoo has a message for anyone going along to see the Real Thing when they come to Colne Muni next week - "prepare to get your dancing shoes on".

The show will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band's debut single You to Me Are Everything topping the charts and will feature all their hits over the years including Can You Feel the Force? and Children of the Ghetto.

"No matter what the venue, by the end of our show no-one is left sitting down," said Eddie who along with brother Chris and Dave Smith make up the band.

"The format is to create a really great party atmosphere," he said. "We will mix in the more serious songs and we also introduce classic songs into the show by the likes of Kool and the Gang and Chic but done in our own way. and people love it."

It is rare enough for a band to be together for over 40 years, rarer still when two brothers are involved but Eddie believes there is a simple answer to that.

"Chris is younger than me." he said. "There is enough of a gap between us so we are not competitive siblings. When you get brothers with a couple of years between them, there's always a competitive edge and that can grow and cause problems.

"With me and Chris it has always been really comfortable between us. We don't have that competitive edge because of the age gap. Everyone has their little ups and downs every now and again but we have always got on - the three of us have always got on, we're mates."

The diversity of The Real Thing's back catalogue is another reason for the band's longevity Eddie believes.

"If you're talking about the early songs written by Ken Gold such as You to Me and Can't Get By, they have become classics in their own right.

"They are genuine floor fillers and that has played a big part in us having long career.

"The songs we have written are a different type of song and that brings in a different type of audience.

"Children of the Ghetto has become a monster of a song for us by way of the number of artists that have covered it."

Among those major names is Mary J Blige, but Eddie had no idea that she had covered it until he was in a shopping mall in America.

"You can imagine how I felt walking through mall in Washington DC and there's Mary J Blige on a big video screen performing Ghetto - I nearly fell over.

"We weren't told that she was going to do a version of the song, it just goes through the chain of the publishers and producers.

"If Mary J Blige wants to record a song, she will get in touch with the publishers, in our case that's Sony Music. You can imagine how many songs they deal with so they haven't time to let you know your song has been covered.

"I was just amazed when I saw it in the shopping mall.

"When wrote Ghetto we were really fledgling writers. We knew it was a great song but we didn't realise how successful that song would become."

The Real Thing, Colne Muni, Friday, December 2. Details from 01282 661234