Human League

Liverpool University, Friday 5th December 2003

For a band associated with all that’s glitzy and at times tacky of the culture that was the 1980’s, tonight’s gig was something else. A cold night in Liverpool at the Liverpool Academy was certainly as far removed from the days of legwarmers and mullets as it ever could be, but an hour in the company of the Human League transported you back to all that was good about the era that style forgot.

Essentially a greatest hits set, with the odd curio thrown in to keep the more ardent fan happy; tonight’s gig showed a band that was still on top of its musical game.

At times Phil Oakey was in danger of losing his voice, but he need not worry as he had the mass ranks of the Liverpool Academy audience to prop him up.

Tonight’s audience were almost as good as the band as a spectacle. The age of the audience was varied from the hardcore that saw them in their heyday, to the younger ones who wanted to do something different on a Friday night.

The make up of the audience was something to behold. When you sit down and analyse the Human Leagues lyrics you do have to say they are not the best. But when you see 40-year-old hairy arsed builders singing along to songs such as ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ it does restore your faith in the human spirit a little.

It was the fourth night of a fifteen-date tour and despite one or two technical difficulties, the band stuck to a tried a tested set list of virtually all the hits.

The stage set was well-designed and afforded Phil Oakey to camp it up from all parts of the stage. Susan and Joanne were perched either side of Oakey when he was front of stage, and at intervals they both disappeared for costume changes throughout the night.

Predictably the last song of the night before the well-deserved encore was ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby’ this was in not the highlight of the set, that was reserved for the final song of the night ‘Together In Electric Dreams’, a song I have never liked was brilliant delivered by the band and sung along by the builders in audience with gusto.

Future plays of this song will conjure up images of tonight’s proceedings. A top gig, if not one of the best I’ve ever seen.