Hopes for Ten Guitars rendition

SMOOTH OPERATOR: Engelbert Humperdinck headlined the Mission Concert in 2002. PHOTO/FILE

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.

He has had international sales of more than 140 million records, received four Grammy nominations and a Golden Globe, and is among the stars on the Hollywood, Las Vegas and Leicester walks of fame.

The set list for a show this week in the Philippines was: That's Life, Am I That Easy to Forget, The Last Waltz, A Man Without Love, After the Lovin', Quando Quando Quando, Look What You've Done to Me, Something About the Way You Look Tonight, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Save the Last Dance for Me, The Power of Love, I'm on Fire, How I Love You, This Moment in Time, The Way It Used to Be, Les Bicyclettes De Belsize, There Goes My Everything, Spanish Eyes and Release Me.

The encore was For the Good Times.