Human League

‘Come On Spandau!’, cheers a man with a receding hair-line, only to have the self-satisfaction of his gag quashed by his governing missus. Next to him a stout, overweight extra from a battle scene in Lord Of The Rings claps out of time. Middle-aged women wear their hair in bunches like they used to ‘back in the day’ and show off far more dilapidated skin than they can probably get away with. No one is under thirty-five.

So this is it, welcome to The Human League 2005 Synth City Tour! The polite chit-chat, group laughter and beckoning waves from here to there prior to the main performance may be more akin to a PTA meeting than a gig, but the hectatious dancing that ensues when the band take the stage is more reminiscent of the crazy scenes at an End Of Term Parent’s Disco!

Opening with ‘Tell Me When’, the 90’s comeback single that ushered in a second generation of League fans makes for a joyous start, instantly cranking the nostalgia dials up to eleven. The crowd let out a passable roar of appreciation, followed by a collective wheeze, as if we’re sitting in the lung of an asthma sufferer. They may not have the stamina of yore, but they’re still loving it.


Long-gone is lead singer Phil Oakey’s trademark half-a-haircut, these days opting for a rubbery skin-head, his face as if encased in a thick plastic lacquer, like an animated shop mannequin. Co-vocalist Susan Sulley is doing alright, challenging the theory that getting old means getting fat and saggy, standing so tall and slender that if she’d been any thinner when she were younger she’d have probably been little more than a walking cotton-bud. Poor old Joanne Catherall on the other hand, looks less like Joanna Catherall, more like Joanna Catherall as performed by Mrs. Meryl Jones, 52, Bagshot, on a particularly bad episode of Stars In Their Eyes and, oh my, ever so bored!

When the Human League are good, they’re incredible – witness classic-album Dare’s opener ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’ pound through the speakers and into the minds of the awe-inspired onlookers, who in the instance are probably taken right back to 1981 and the first time they’d ever heard it. Then there’s ‘The Lebanon’ and ‘Love Action’, which when performed against the Tron-like, electric bolt backdrop, pitches the mood so far back in decades forlorn that it’s almost sad that time ever had to move on after them.

‘Don’t You Want Me’ is received with the predictable uproar associated with a timeless smash-hit single, but it’s for set-closer ‘Electric Dreams’ that the highest reverence must stand for it being the epitome of great 80’s pop.

In between these moments of greatness sits awkward filler that doesn’t cater to the nature of reminiscence, and it’s probably because of this that the band are playing relatively small venues these days, whilst 80’s counterparts Duran Duran & Depeche Mode can still sell out massive arena venues.


Still, without The Human League we wouldn’t have The Killers or The Bravery (is that a bad thing?) or indeed any significant electro-pop at all. Their live show may have slipped down a gear as the glory days sink ever further into the past, but for their contribution to popular music and it’s legacy hereon we shall forever be in debt to them.

FUTURE GIGS