Rock of ages

You know you’re getting old when the music of your youth is neatly packaged up into compilation albums and package tours/festivals. I turned 10 in 1980 so that’s my particular decade and as you’ll no doubt have noticed the 80’s revival scene has been doing pretty brisk business since as far back as the late 90s (a decade that’s now also being repackaged and reissued...how can it be...surely it was only a year or two ago...what’s that you say...twenty plus years ago...oh good grief). 

On the one hand inevitably the whole retro music industry has more than a whiff of cheese about it but on the other it’s a pretty harmless bit of fun so with that positive thought firmly in mind (plus a litre or two of Tesco’s finest £3.50 a bottle red wine to take the edge of things) I’m off to Let’s Rock Exeter tomorrow. 

There are a growing number of these 80’s extravaganzas across the country now so they must be doing something right. This particular event’s no doubt also benefited from the inclusion of Mr Rick Astley whose Lazarus like return to pop stardom has just been capped off with a number 1 album...a mere 29 years after his last one. Hearing Aid faves Heaven 17 and The Human League are also on the bill along with youthful crush Kim Wilde. 

Ahem. You’ve also got 75% of Bucks Fizz (so that’ll be Bucks Fi then), Fine Young Cannibals’ Roland Gift (who was on fine form when I saw him a year ago), mall warbler Tiffany, The Beat (or at least one version of The Beat), Dr and the Medics, Alexander O’Neal, Odyssey and T’Pau. I’m quite exhausted just typing that lot out and, given that I’m prone to what could possibly pass for dancing in an emergency, Sunday’s going to be a whole world of pain. Anyway, tickets are still for sale right here and the sun’s gonna shine. Maybe. For a bit. Oh who am I trying to kid, it looks like it's going to be Wet Wet Wet.