Bournemouth Echo
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The Neon Press Reviews/Interviews
Re: The Neon Press Reviews/Interviews
I was on the verge of starting a free trial just to finish reading that. Luckily you posted it here just in time, cheers!Pughie wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:46 pm The Times
Erasure in arenas in 2021? If the 1980s synth-pop pioneers hadn’t been on your radar for decades, you might not have believed it. Yet this gig was testament to a duo whose fall from fashion hasn’t dented their appeal or their work ethic.
Last year Erasure’s 18th album, The Neon, took them into the Top Five for the first time in a quarter of a century and reminded fans how much fun they are. Not to mention how odd. Here, the flamboyant frontman Andy Bell and the limelight-loathing keyboardist Vince Clarke had never looked more chalk and cheese.
Clarke, now a bald, skinny 61, was dapper in a silver suit and black tie and stayed silent almost all night. Bell, a sprightly 57, bantered incessantly between songs, clad in a ludicrous combo of bright blue corset and Rupert Bear-style checked trousers while sporting the sensible specs he needed to read the set list.
And what a set list it was. In two hours, on a neon-lit stage with egg-shaped screens, Erasure powered through more than a dozen vintage hits. Bell’s voice has barely changed since the band’s heyday, hitting high notes with ease and pouring passion into songs that were once considered disposable pop.
Fonder of dramatic gesticulation than dance moves, Bell was thankfully flanked by a pair of singers in fabulous, fur-trimmed gowns who doubled as the show’s moving parts. They were on swings and a mini roundabout for the opener, Chorus, stomping the stage for a high-energy Stop!, shimmying throughout a boisterous Blue Savannah and full-on disco divas during the highlights Love to Hate You and Sometimes.
Inevitably, newer songs were greeted with less excitement, although The Neon’s Nerves of Steel and Shot a Satellite should be future set staples. The corset may have run its course, though. Clark briefly left his keyboard to snip it off Bell with scissors before a final run of hits that reached its peak with Oh L’amour, accompanied by an amateur choir, in the encore.
By then Bell had donned glittery platform boots as though ready for a night on the town. Clarke, meanwhile, looked ready for his bed.
- Rating: 25%