Centrestage at the Royal Albert
Hall Trevor Horn is introducing the album that made him into one of
Britain's most celebrated record producers. "Why," he ponders aloud,
"are we all gathered here to listen to an album that came out 25 years
ago?" The prosaic answer is that ABC, like virtually every
artist willing to admit they'll never be as good as they once were,
have acquiesced to the trend of performing their best loved album live
in its entirety: 1982's The Lexicon Of Love, not only the source of
their biggest hits, but the apotheosis of knowing, high-concept "new
pop". But perhaps there's another reason beyond mere nostalgia.
As is evident from his onstage patter - "we're all having a great time
up here, aren't we guys?" - lead vocalist Martin Fry has spent the last
decade on the 80s revival circuit: he's a regular on those tours that
pack Britain's arenas every Christmas. Dutifully knocking out
the hits is a living, but revisiting their debut in its entirety is a
way of reminding people that ABC not only once had rather loftier
ambitions, but briefly achieved them: here was a band who became, as
Fry once put it, "Westlife big", while making records that allowed the
kind of critics who like throwing phrases such as "meta-pop" and
"Brechtian" around to do so with impunity. Understandably, a
sense of occasion prevails. Original drummer David Palmer has flown in
from LA and the album's arranger Anne Dudley is acting as conductor,
but what has happened to the other original members of ABC remains a
mystery: perhaps to divert from their absence, they appear to have
drafted someone who looks like James May from Top Gear on lead guitar. The
Lexicon Of Love was always about opulence: ABC posed for promotional
photos in white tie, gold lame, even, on one notable occasion, tweed
with open shotguns hanging over their arms. The presence of the BBC
Concert Orchestra is a fittingly grandiose gesture, although it's hard
to escape the feeling that some of them are perhaps surplus to
requirements: tonight certainly represents easy money for the lady
bassoonist, who spends much of the evening unemployed, wearing the look
of someone who wishes they'd brought a paperback. A similar
expression is sported by a number of children in the audience clearly
dragged here by their parents in a spirit of I'll-show-you-real-music
improvement. Everyone else, however, goes crazy: the crowd's response
to The Look Of Love and Poison Arrow is so tumultuous that it
momentarily looks like it will require a water cannon and tear gas to
restore order.In truth, the stuff that once got critics so
excited has been dulled by the passing of time - the impact of the
songs' knowing references to Smokey Robinson, The Zombies and Bob Dylan
is lost in an age where most pop and rock
music is primarily concerned with making knowing references to the past
- but the glossy pop-funk still sounds not just remarkably fresh, but
remarkably consistent: there isn't a dud among the songs. And whatever
detrimental effects the I heart the 80s circuit has had on Fry's
ambitions, it's left him in fine voice, capable of navigating the
tricky, prog rock-influenced 4Ever 2Gether and investing All Of My
Heart with genuine feeling. As it dies away, the crowd rise in a
deserved standing ovation.