ShareErasure performing their World Be Gone Tour at The Royal Concert Hall Nottingham on Monday 12th February 2018.
Images and Review by Kevin Cooper
After postponing the opening three shows of their tour due to Andy Bell having a virus, it was a very relieved audience at the Royal Concert Hall last night who had braved the cold to see Erasure performing their World Be Gone tour.
With a stunning but simple stage design resembling three neon photo frames, the fabulous backing singers, Emma Whittle and Valerie Chalmers writhed behind backlit gauze to the theme from Tales Of The Expected, whilst Vince Clarke and his keyboards were situated high above Bell’s mic stand, which rendered him barely visible for most of the show.
Bell was dressed in a blazer which appeared to be covered in bird droppings, and with Clarke sombrely suited and booted, the duo opened their set strongly with Oh L’Amour, with Bell astride a chair reminiscent of the famous Christine Keeler pose.
After more than thirty years of constant recording and touring, slimming down the Erasure back catalogue to 25 tracks couldn’t have been easy, and with their new more melancholic album, World Be Gone, to promote, the task was made harder.
New song Take Me Out Of Myself was well received as was the likeable soulful Sweet Summer Loving, but it was fans favourites Victim Of Love, Always, Blue Savannah and Stop! that had the crowd up and dancing.
Whilst clearly still suffering from the effects of his cold, Bell demonstrated that he is still an incredible vocalist as they dipped back into the 80s for Ship Of Fools and Chains Of Love. A cover of Blondie’s Atomic went down a storm before they finished their set with a joyous version of Sometimes. The encore was unsurprisingly A Little Respect, which saw the neon boxes showing every colour of the rainbow and Clarke finally descended to the stage with his guitar to join the others in a mass sing along.
