SEC Armadillo, Glasgow
On the opening night of their first post-pandemic tour, the British synth-pop duo proved they haven’t lost their essence
It’s hard to tell if Andy Bell spent 18 months or 18 seconds pondering his outfit for the opening night of Erasure’s first post-pandemic tour – an understated below-the-nipple bright blue corset and yellow tartan trews combination. “Wonder Woman crossed with Lindsay Wagner Bionic Woman She-Ra slash Powerpuff Girl,” he tells the crowd. Bell’s keyboard-prodding bandmate and studiously un-flamboyant foil Vince Clarke, in his inimitable having-none-of-it way, sports a trim grey suit, tie pin glinting under the stage lights.
The perennial bridesmaids of British synth-pop (32 consecutive UK Top 40 singles; only one No 1, the Abba-esque EP) are back to business, and it’s the fun and daft serotonin rush we all badly need. The duo have described their 18th album The Neon as a trip “back to the beginning”. Hey Now (Think I Got a Feeling) finds Bell beating the darkened city streets again, mildly off his box, looking for love and finding only empty hedonism, Clarke’s vintage synth-scape cascading around him like sodium glow. The sound of new-old Erasure can’t help but pale by comparison as the old-old classics drop – Who Needs Love Like That, Blue Savannah and A Little Respect in the first half-hour alone – but they remain a band who have never lost their essence.
Erasure: The Neon tour is in the UK until 18 October, before US and Europe dates in 2022.
This article was amended on 4 October 2021. It previously stated that Erasure had no UK No 1 singles; their 1992 EP Abba-esque was their sole No 1.