Review: Simple Minds at LG Arena, NEC

Dec 3 2009 Review by Alan Lancaster

MARKING the 30th anniversary of their debut album Life In A Day, Jim Kerr and cohorts have made a surprising return to form with this year’s Graffiti Soul.

Here’s a band who could have simply rested on their laurels (earned from selling over 35 million albums worldwide) and hammered through those greatest hits on auto-pilot, yet Graffiti Soul marks something of a creative peak.

Toning down some of the excessive bombast that characterised their mid-80s output, there’s a renewed sense of restraint to new tracks such as recent single Rockets, which easily boosts their already hefty back catalogue.

Despite the strength of new material, it’s naturally cuts from that back catalogue that receive the biggest applause with the band leading the crowd through sing-along renditions of Transatlantic hit Don’t You (Forget About Me), Someone Somewhere In Summertime and Alive And Kicking.

Although Simple Minds were closing the show, they didn’t completely steal all the limelight thanks to an hour long opener from the reformed Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD).

The Liverpool synth’ and bass duo, who were formed the same year as Simple Minds, opted for a nostalgic hits-orientated set list, presenting loyal versions of such Smash Hits-friendly numbers as Enola Gay, Locomotion and Souvenir.

They returned to the stage at the end of the night to accompany Simple Minds for a cover of Kraftwerk’s seminal Neon Lights, but the night definitely belonged to Kerr and company.

VERDICT: 4/5