"What was so fucking great about the 80s?" asks Marc Almond, Soft Cell's impish frontman. "I had some good times," he shrugs, "shagged a few people. Took a few drugs. But if that's what you want I'm not going to spoil it for you."
Not that he'd be able to. Everyone here is ready to party like it's 1981 - at least, they've come prepared with lashings of eyeliner. Almond wears a peroxide blond quiff, a black top that sparkles and wide trousers that swish; as he struts around the stage, throwing robotic dance moves and entreating the crowd to sing Memorabilia, it's like the past 20 years never happened.
The outpouring of affection is surprising considering Soft Cell's short - though glittering - career. Almond and colleague Dave Ball split in 1984 after just four years of pop stardom, ending the stream of seedy glamour and unrestrained sexuality they brought to the charts and an unlikely but successful relationship. Ball maintains the prerequisite glum visage, but he's clearly happy standing behind his bank of electronic equipment. Almond, meanwhile, is a nonstop ball of enthusiasm, excitement and emotion. His dramatics are almost as impressive as his rich voice, with faux displays of tragedy and a bouncing, arm-waving joy.
But then drama was always Soft Cell's defining characteristic. Ball's electronic scribblings consist largely of a repetitive beat that creates a feeling of unease; while that worms its way under your skin, delicate trumpet and piano add colour to the urban sound. Almond stands at the front of the stage, leading the audience in a rendition of Youth, joining them for another soaring vocal, his flourishes filling in the blank spaces between the beats.
Nostalgia has sold the tickets (and the venue is packed), but the duo also choose to play a couple of new, unreleased songs. "Apparently we sound too much like Soft Cell," Almond remarks. "People we've played them to say: 'Can't you make it sound like the Chemical Brothers?'" It's fair to say that Divided Souls - inspired by Marvin Gaye - isn't big beat, but it is the kind of detail-laden, down-at-heel song that Soft Cell do best, a poppy tale of introspection and isolation.
The songs go on for a bit too long, but when they include the squalid but beautiful Bedsitter, it's forgivable. Tainted Love is fantastic, the magic made greater by its slow-burning fusion into the Supremes' Where Did Our Love Go? Almond shakes his hips as he whacks the drum machine, but on Say Hello Wave Goodbye he is almost redundant, his attempt to sing the song a little bit faster than usual shot down in flames by the crowd who know exactly how it should be done. You don't mess with a classic, after all.
