Tom Bailey, the founder of the iconic ‘80s new wave group, Thompson Twins, returned to play the material live again with a ‘Greatest Hits’ tour, four years after he performed the band’s seminal and most commercially successful album, ‘Into the Gap’, in its entirety for the first time at the same venue, which holds personal significance for him being run by his manager, David Stopps.
The band, consisting of all-female multi-instrumentalists, opened on Thompson Twins’ first commercially recognised dance track from 1982, ‘In the Name of Love’, featuring walking bass strides. The big, red inflatable ball came out for number 2 charting single, ‘You Take Me Up’, which is traditionally thrown into the audience, with Bailey playing harmonica at the song’s close; ‘Love on Your Side’, the group’s first chart hit from 1983, saw a percussive section with him beating on a drum machine.
Having introduced synths to the group, Bailey played keyboard parts throughout the set, including in ‘If You Were Here’, for which he also did a solo. Thompson Twins harnessed the genre of world music in the charts, with the band performing number 7 single from the 1983 debut album, ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’, ‘We Are Detective’, played acoustically with accordion-style keyboard and tabla drumming, the Eastern influence also evident in ‘The Gap’.
The singer dedicated his 2018 solo album song, ‘Shooting Star’, and the rest of the set thereafter to the woman who ran Thomoson Twins’ fan club for many years and who recently passed away, moving onto ‘Into the Gap’ with the tread of ‘Sister of Mercy’ with electric cello, a rare performance of ‘Kamikaze’ from the debut album, with radio frequencies and, as Bailey did four years earlier, a cover of Talking Head’s ‘Psycho Killer’.
The band ended their main set on Thompson Twins’ suspenseful number 3 charting single, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’, with keytar and another keyboard solo, coming back for an encore that included another of their biggest hits, ‘Hold Me Now’, which was mostly sung with audience accompaniment.
10/09/26: Tom Bailey @ Aylesbury Waterside Theatre.
Photo © Ayisha Khan.
© Ayisha Khan.