By Andrew Mosley

WHEN?: Friday 7 November, tour runs through 10 July 2026

It’s bouncing off the bumps of Yorkshire’s country roads in Richard Gostling’s VW Beatle while When Smokey Sings blasts from the cheap radio. It’s cringing in the pub as Phil Robinson quotes lyrics from the band’s songs as chat-up lines to what he sees as potential girlfriends.

• Read on for reasons including the joys of being a New Romantic in a tough northern industrial city

That’s what ABC mean to me. I was 19 and had swerved The Lexicon of Love in favour of Sheffield’s other illuminati The Human League and Heaven 17.

Everyone else here in a packed City Hall knows every word to every song as Martin Fry sways like a Tony Christie-esque lounge singer delivering the hits in front of the near 40-piece Lexicon Sinfonia, conducted by wonderful former Art of Noise-r Anne Dudley.

We get Smokey, The Night You Murdered Love, Millionaire, King Without A Crown – Fry tells us he’s ‘no royalist’ – and Be Near Me, as well as a really lovely new song, I Guess I’ll Never Get To Be, which he dedicates to his wife.

The feel of the evening takes me back to watching the wonderful My Life Story at Ronnie Scott’s in London in the mid-90s, except tonight feels as if it’s more about the orchestra and the Brian May lookalike (we are a good distance away) guitarist than ABC.

That changes after the interval though when Lexicon of Love is played in its entirety.

Fry is more engaging, the songs seem to have more depth, his voice nailing every line.

We get tales of Sheffield rehearsal rooms, its pubs, Fry’s job at dried food manufacturers Batchelor’s, the joys of being a New Romantic in a tough northern industrial city.

We also get the incredible Poison Arrow, Tears Are Not Enough, All Of My Heart, Many Happy Returns and, of course, The Look Of Love. The audience, older but still sparkling, loves it all and rightly so.

In fact, so rapturous is the reception, the entire ensemble returns to play The Look Of Love for a second time, before departing the city of the birth of its fabulous parent album. An album that, 40 years ago, I somehow missed.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Andrew Mosley and ABC Tickets
• Mozza’s 1st novel The Choreography Of Ghosts is recently published and you can read more about him on his website and buy it here.
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