. . . or click on the link here for Audio Player – The Thompson Twins – Live at Paris Theatre, London – 1983 – BBC Radio 1
As a reminder the 80s were a decade of shoulder pads, Tenex (we called it Dippidy-Doo in the U.S.) and Henna, we also had a flurry of Techno-Dance-Electronica-New Wave bands, which ushered in the decade of conspicuous consumption. It was after all, The Reagan Years. And in the UK, it was The Thatcher Years. The Thompson Twins initially started off in 1977 as a New Wave band, but switched styles in the 80s to become part of what was termed The Second British Invasion. Primarily bands which were commercially very successful, but not all that pioneering in their music – rather their image was the thing that captured attention, and fans. They had numerous hits worldwide. Despite their mass commercial popularity, the press routinely trashed them, referring to the band at the peak of their popularity in 1984 as “1984’s most instantly kitsch mass program of monosodium glutamation of the brain” and “candy-floss art-capitalists”. The Guardian went so far as to call them “The Three Haircuts”.
But they did have their fans, and they had a lot of them. So as a reminder of whether you loved them or hated them, here they are in concert as they were breaking into worldwide attention. The concert was recorded faithfully, as always, by BBC Radio 1 for their In Concert series in 1983.
Time to dig out the shoulder pads.
Editors Note: Thanks to some intrepid sleuthing by Fans Of The Twins, I was told the concert was from 1982, but broadcast in 1983 and the location was York University, not the Paris Theatre as I erroneously stated. Good one, o Eagle-eye detectives!
