London Wembley Arena

TO BE honest I'd sooner have been somewhere else with someone else. Or anywhere else with anyone else. From my seat the stage was on the horizon and over it hung suspended giant inflatable balls. What a feast of sadistic punning such a spectacle could offer the tired reviewer! Over the auditorium were nets of regular sized balloons, no doubt to be released at the show's finale to explode on the tips of lighted cigarettes with an echoing and wildly symbolic POP!

From this distance the Thompson Twins looked like miniatures. They moved with a dwarf-like charm. I gritted my ears and pinned back my teeth. Played end to end it became clear how dead weedy the TTs' tunes have become since they released the comparative energy bolt of 'Love On Your Side'. Their surprising number of hits move at uniformly sluggish tempos and have marginally dramatic intros and outros. Inbetween lies a striking lack of anything much.

Indeed, it is that lack of anything much that has become the TT's forte. It, clothed In a thin layer of budget glamour, has fuelled their ascent into the upper strata of 1980s Britpop. On stage they provoke (in those who seek it) a genuine but tacky excitement and exude dilute charisma.

The TT's offer no excuses. Something in me admires them for that. They relish this kind of environment and don't look lost within it. They don't want to be taken seriously. They just want to be taken. And they are.