There is no word yet on whether Missioners who missed out on Ten Guitars when ageing crooner Engelbert Humperdinck starred at the 10th Mission Concert in 2002 will finally get their wish when he returns to Napier in just over a month's time.
Humperdinck, real name Arnold George Dorsey and now aged 80, opens a New Zealand tour at Napier Municipal Theatre on September 1, 50 years after party favourite Ten Guitars was released in 1966 as the flip-side to Release Me, his first big global hit.
But it was not on the set list at the Mission in 2002, when he starred with 1960s and 1970s Australia chart-toppers The Seekers, and it has not been on the list for shows on his King of Romance Tour, currently in Asia. The tour in New Zealand starts in Wellington, with Napier the second stop.
It's thought to be his third trip to New Zealand since 2002, having had two single-show visits to Auckland in 2006 and 2013.
It was reported after the 2002 concert, the 10th Mission Concert, that the only let-down was his failure to sing Ten Guitars, which had become a popular guitar party song and unofficial anthem throughout New Zealand.