Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There will always be bands, institutions that come calling to the music venues of Liverpool of whom you just instinctively understand that the city will always turn out for in their droves for, that there will never be a moment when the loving feeling they have nurtured and held on to, will ever fade away.
A night when Heaven 17 drives its trusted and adored bandwagon across from South Yorkshire to the home of British Pop Music has always been one to savour, however in recent years it has taken on more a sense of mystical symbolism, the anniversaries have come thick and fast, important dates that are always worth celebrating have come round with what is sure to be seen as enticing to the fans as all celebrations do.
The noted birthday tour of the album Penthouse and Pavements a few years back was one thing, a 35th anniversary of The Luxury gap is quite another, a step into the night of boundless energy, of finding that Time in all its glory and often unforgiving nature, can still come through and make a sound that makes your heart ache with forgotten and revived passion; such is the serious majesty of The Luxury Gap that the multitude who congregated inside the 02 Academy on Hotham Street, prayed at the altar of Pop-synth and gave thanks to an evening of retrospective beauty.
If Time is an allusion, then we require a force in which to remind us physically of what has passed, and in an evening dedicated to an 80s great, it was perhaps illuminating that during the sequence of songs played by Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory, a moment of reveal perhaps stole the show, nostalgia in its most incredible form. The very keyboard in which Martyn ware wrote the Human League song Being Boiled upon, 40 years old and still sounding astonishing, so beautiful perhaps that sirens that hug the dangerous rocks and hammered by waves and tempests, were forced to down tools and realise that they have been surpassed in luring gentle folk in the act of reminiscing.
From Crushed by the Wheels of Industry, Who’ll Stop the Rain, Key To The World, the superb and mighty Temptation, Come Live With Me and The Best Kept Secret and through to songs such as Circus of Death, Crow and a Baby, (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang, I’m Your Money and Penthouse and Pavement, Heaven 17 took the crowd of the Liverpool Academy down a path of delight, an anniversary waltz conducted by one of the masters of synth and golden toned voice.
A night of special thought, of memories of long since gone times, reflected back and with honour always intact, Heaven 17 always have a home in Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall