If you think '70s, you might perhaps still have to fight back a girlie smile at the thought of Summer Lovin', or maybe you chaps out there fancied yourselves as mini-David Bowie-ites...

In the '80s it was all Nu-Romantics, in the '90s it was acid house and here in the noughties? From emo to sleep-o, isn't it?

But few musical explosions have spilled the energy and sound of Motown, which was more than just a beat and a style, for it was also responsible for breaking down barriers around the world...

To trace the beginnings, you need to go back to Detroit in the early 1960s. Local kids were in search of a form of expression that they could call their own. Motown Hitsville studio gave them the 'drug' they wanted.

By 1959, Berry Gordy had already sampled success when Jackie Wilson took Reet Petite to the charts. It didn't hit the top spot then (although its re-release almost three decades later would see it reach Number One), but the money garnered from the track allowed Gordy the finances to set up his own record company.

It was launched in a timber-frame bungalow at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, and named Tamla Motown Records.

During the years that followed, black soul music began to reach a white audience, and the rest? They call that history!

Dancing In The Streets celebrates the phenomenon at MK Theatre tonight (and through to Saturday May 10) with the music of artists like The Temptations, The Commodores, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and The Supremes.

You might well have heard it through the grapevine, but this is your chance to hear it in the live! Tickets start at £9 and go up to £26.