Human League and Heaven 17

Festival Big Top, Galway Tomorrow 7pm 38.50 091-566577

Pop music trainspotters would know why it’s intriguing to have Human League (singer Phil Oakey, pictured) and Heaven 17 co-headline. Around Sheffield way back in the post-punk days of 1978, they were, pretty much, one and the same band.

Come 1980, internal frictions (caused, perhaps, by Oakey camping it up with Veronica Lake-style geometric hairstyles and pierced nipples) resulted in Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware departing Human League and forming, with vocalist Glenn Gregory, Heaven 17.

It’s all water under the bridge now, of course, and Marsh and Ware were surely happy bunnies that they negotiated a percentage in future royalties for allowing Oakey to retain the Human League title. So now we have two thumping good bands for the price of one – a Sheffield steal, you might say. Prepare ye, then, you lucky people, for the League’s perfect electro- pop and 17’s more dance- oriented groove thang.

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