Bangles - Indigo, London, 5/10/2010

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 6 / 10 / 2010

intro

At a cancer benefit gig at the Indigo in London, Anthony Strutt watches 80's girl group the Bangles play a short, but powerful set which includes both old and new songs

The Indigo is in the 02 arena venue and tonight I am there to see my beloved Bangles for the first time in seven years. They last played London two years ago at the cost of £75 when they supported the Police at Hyde Park. This is a cancer benefit to lost TV celebrity, Caron Keating, who died in 2004 at the age of 41. As most charity shows go, the trust make out of it, the bands don't get paid and the audience suffer by getting short sets. That is all as usual once more tonight. Tonight's gig is only half full. The drinks are all over priced. Basic lager and bottles cost £4 and spirits £7. Doors open at 7 p.m. and we are left alone apart from 80's videos for an hour and forty minutes before real life shows its head. The two main supports both don't do enough. Both Amy MacDonald and Beverley Knight do crowd pleasing sets of twenty five minutes each, buy that's not really good when they could of come on earlier and done full sets. Two girl bands whom are based around the charity come on next and entertain, but everyone here is here for the Bangles including the countless lesbians present, all of whom seem to be having fights with their girlfriends. The Bangles come on over thirty minutes late, but have me in their hand straight away. Their set is again short at only forty five minutes. They prove to be were as great a band as when I first saw them in 1985, an experience that it totally changed my life. They may have lost a member since I last saw them in guitarist Michael Steele who quit in 2005, but my love for Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson remains as powerful as ever. We even got two new songs too.

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