This tour’s title is slightly misleading. With The Human League, Kim Wilde and Five Star claiming top billing, it’s not so much Here And Now as Way Back Then.
Although The Human League released their last album, Secrets, only last year, and Phil Oakey can take satisfaction in the resurrected cool of lopsided haircuts, their heyday was undoubtedly 20 years ago when their doleful electronic classic, Don’t You Want Me Baby, practically defined a generation. Their albums since then have been praised and panned to various degrees, but there’s no denying that they pioneered 1980s synth-pop.
Five Star, on the other hand, purveyed an entirely different brand of music, complete with cheery dance routines and sparkly jumpsuits. In 1986, they scored four Top 10 hits: debut album Silk and Steel contained six Top 20 singles.
Less prolific, but just as well-known, is Kim Wilde. She inspired the first stirrings of lust in teenage boys across the western world, with perky, sub-Blondie hits such as 1981’s Kids in America and 1986’s You Keep Me Hanging On. Abandoning fame and frosted eyeshadow for sunflowers and slug pellets in 1999, she now writes a weekly newspaper gardening column and appears on various TV garden makeover shows. Appearances from new wave fivesome Altered Images, electro-popstrels Dollar, all-girl ska band Belle Stars and Steve Strange’s utterly bizarre disco outfit, Visage, will ensure the gig is a veritable 1980s time warp.
We may scoff now at the monstrous barnets and ghastly outfits but, given the Pop Idol and (soon) Fame Academy offspring-packed charts of today, we didn’t know how lucky we were.