Daniel O'Donnell has fans swooning at Birmingham NIA

Thousands of excited women, 11 glowing Christmas trees on stage and a sea of grey hair - it can only mean one thing.

It's the Daniel O'Donnell Christmas concert. Several thousand middle-aged people packed into the NIA yesterday for the Irish crooner's latest show, with coachloads from all over the country spilling out onto the streets of Birmingham long before the show was due to start.

"Massive fan" Kerry Conway, aged 36, was with friends and family from Bearwood. She came with a birthday cake, a rose and a present to give to him afterwards in honour of his upcoming 49th birthday.

"I'm such a big fan — I've liked him for around 15 years and must have seen him 20 times," she said.

"I've even followed him to Ireland. I think he's just lovely." Daniel certainly gave fans their money's worth, telling jokes, sharing confidences, and jigging around merrily like men half his age might struggle to do as well as singing some of his best-loved hits and covers of classics such as Elvis's All Shook Up.

He had a number of costume changes, even getting an old-fashioned style streetlamp on stage while he and his backing singers, dressed like traditional carollers, sang In the Bleak Midwinter and The First Noel.

His humility and good nature are apparent as he repeatedly thanks the audience for attending and shares credit with them for his success, acknowledging that his songs were hits only because they made them so.

"This was a song you not only decided to make a hit, but got on Top of the Pops," he said at one point, before launching into I Just Wanna Dance With You.

He is gracious enough to promise anyone who couldn't make it due to the weather a full refund, and meets every fan who joins the queue after the show.

His audience pay him back for it with undivided adoration, laughing at jokes and his funny dance moves, whipping out glowsticks and electric candles for the Christmas songs and shedding tears at a moving song about the Christmas Day truce during World War I.

One fan interrupted a song mid-way, beckoning him over to the side of the stage to give him a birthday present and get a photo taken with her idol.