The Human League/Marc Almond/Toyah, Brighton Beach review - affable 1980s-themed seaside package

Today gradually blossoms from unpromising beginnings. LouderUK’s On The Beach event series takes place throughout the summer and runs the gamut from indie pop-rock, such as Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party, to dance events featuring DJs such as Bonobo and Carl Cox. As the name suggests, it all happens on Brighton’s pebbled seashore, overseen by clifftop Georgian houses.

Beneath cloudy skies, on a muggy early evening, to a less-than-quarter full arena, Toyah (pictured left) starts her set with a cover of Martha and the Muffins’ deathless one-hit-wonder “Echo Beach”. She’s clad in a black kimono-style gown dress with gold flaking, accompanied by a full band, including two guitarists (one of whom needs to develop a stage face as he looks bored throughout). More than most, due to the COVID lockdown success of her YouTube performances with husband Robert Fripp, Toyah can claim cover versions are her remit.

Her set, then, combines such songs, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” and, ebulliently, Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”, with her own hits, notably the catchy “It’s a Mystery” (which she tells us can only be sung by a 67-year-old and someone with a lisp) and “Thunder in the Mountains” which is, apparently, “the song that brought punk back in the Eighties”. A number of bands would have something to say about that.

As notable, unfortunately, is the drab, relentless drizzle that’s arrived. Toyah remains irrepressible, emanating girl scout leader positivity. She’s likeable, if musically underwhelming. The crowd are mostly of a vintage to remember the 1980s, alongside a decent smattering of anemoiac 20-somethings. Everyone’s cheerfully onside, up-for-it.

Between band sets DJ and writer Simon Price and his partner Janey BlamBlam play hits of the era. Their Brighton club night Spellbound is devoted to recalling Eighties “alternative” (as it was known back then). A tendency has grown to regard the 1980s as a kitsch retro party where The Cure sit happily alongside horrid Phil Collins-ish yacht rock. Spellbound remind this was never the case. They have devotees of all ages. I’d hazard many dancing around me, damp with rainfall but keen and black-clad, have attended more than once.

Toyah finishes with a tribute to the weather, which earlier closed the site briefly, an engaging, riffy newish one called “Dance in the Hurricane”. But it’s Marc Almond, next, who has more luck. By the time he appears the place has filled up. The evening has settled to a balmy, warm, cloud-mottled pink sunset. Brighton is looking her best, the pier a lit-up backdrop, the sea dotted with boats, illicitly attending the gig (pictured above, caught by the sidescreen cameras).

Clad in black, wearing aviators, the sides of his head shaved, a large gold skull’n’crossbones on his chest, Marc Almond (pictured right) opens with his obscure, mid-Nineties, minor hit ode to casual London sex, “Adored and Explored”. His band are also in black, including two backing singers. Except the keyboard player, whose black shirt has a flamboyant Mexican design in bright colours. Neal X, once of Eighties tabloid cyber-punks Sigue Sigue Sputnik, is on guitar.

Friends have mixed reactions to Almond’s set. Some are dismissive. They suggest that, further back, the sound isn’t amplified meatily enough. I’m upfront where all is well. Also, this isn’t Soft Cell. If you’re after synth-pop, you’re out of luck. Hearing “Bedsitter” guitar-led takes a moment but Almond and the crowd gel. He mingles in solo hits such as Jacques Brel’s “Jacky” and David McWilliams’ “The Days of Pearly Spencer”.

The final one-two punch is “Tainted Love” and “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”. The former isn’t even really a song anymore. More something embedded deep in generational DNA. The latter causes much effusive audience singing, and closes with Almond holding a flamboyantly long final note. He then ends with T-Rex’s “Hot Love”. It’s not been subtle, more pub sing-along, but it works and the crowd is enlivened.

The Human League, though, are another level. On the sparse white stage, a drummer, then two young men with keytars. A long intro to “The Sound of the Crowd” builds anticipation. Phil Oakey appears, channelling Jean-Luc Picard in a strange black outfit with giant shoulder pads, his eyes covered by shades akin to early VR goggles. At each side of the stage are his female accomplices, Susan Ann Sulley, in a shoulderless pink dress and Joanna Catherall in a pink glittery number. I shall not attempt to list all the costume changes. There are a lot. Perhaps too many for Oakey. Later on he misses the opening line of an encore-starting “Being Boiled” as he scrambles on in his latest ensemble (a Dune-like cape-suit).

“Strange how potent cheap music is,” says Amanda in Noel Coward’s Private Lives. There’s something of this to The Human League’s endless parade of perfectly carved pop. Not in a dismissive, snobby sense. Their songs combine musical straightforwardness with everyday lyricism, resulting in superlative kitchen sink vignettes. 1984’s “Louise”, for instance, is a stand-out tonight, a poignant and lyrically chewy relationship saga. But, of course, it’s the bangers that rule the night (and it is now night).

Oakey sits on some steps for “Mirror Man”, cavorts back’n’forth for “Heart Like a Wheel”, tells us its co-writer, ex-League member Jo Callis is in the crowd, sings “The Lebanon” without any special introduction but one can’t help but think. Sulley sings lead on 1995 hit “One Man in my Heart”. She’s the more animated and stage-gregarious of “the girls” but both are essential to the band’s appeal.

Her number allows Oakey yet another change, into a powder blue suit with gold buttons, an amalgam of Bowie and David Byrne. Like “Louise”, “Keep Feeling Fascination” comes into its own live, its cheesiness tempered by sonic punch and strong delivery. “Don’t You Want Me”, as with “Tainted Love” earlier, is a song bigger than the band, bigger than all of us, a monster.

The encore-closer is “Together in Electric Dreams”. Not actually a Human League song, as Eighties nerds know, but one Oakey did with Giorgio Moroder. By this point the frontman has loosened up. His cool Eighties persona is cast aside. He grins and thanks us for coming.

“We’ll always be together, however far it seems, we’ll always be together, together in electric dreams.”

Who knows what it even means? But it’s lovely to sing along to. And we all do.

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