OMD, review: ‘mindless’ synth-pop has seldom sounded more creative, intelligent or daring
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“Let’s do a song about the end of the universe,” beamed a jubilant Andy McCluskey, introducing History of Modern (Part 1) to an O2’s worth of equally delighted faces. “You’ve got to jump up and down now, to a song about the end of the universe.”
Plus ça change. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark now have almost five decades of serving up darkness, gallows humour and growing fear as catchy, danceable synth-pop bangers behind them. McCluskey and keyboard-toting co-founder Paul Humphreys are both comfortably into their 60s. And yet, in truth, not a lot has really changed for the pair, even as they delightedly noted that Sunday night was their first time performing on Greenwich’s grandest stage.
Last year’s excellent Bauhaus Staircase album took in granite themes of fascist creep and a looming existential shadow. As it grappled with these heavy thoughts, it did so to music that prodded at the possibilities of electronics while also maintaining something joyful and vital, with a particular strain of Britishness running through it. Even Professor Brian Cox’s remark that it was like Kraftwerk via Wirral could have come from almost any point in OMD’s long career. Familiar as all this is, OMD continue to sound like they’re coming from both space and the future.
“I assume you already have your dancing shoes on,” grinned McCluskey as he introduced Messages. Let’s talk about dancing, namely his. They are dad-shapes par excellence. You might point and laugh – and plenty have done, frequently – but clearly, nobody was having a better time than he. Plus, with the rest of the band static behind keyboards and drums, McCluskey is a singer with more space to fill than most. All the strutting and shaking merely made him a better frontman.
Not that he was the only thing to look at. While the band played on colour-changing lightboxes, behind them an enormous video-wall illustrated the songs with bright, verdant psychedelia (Tesla Girls), brutalist art (Bauhaus Staircase), mushroom clouds (the ironically effervescent Enola Gay) and Molly Ringwald (If You Leave, from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack). If it occasionally felt a little Tomorrow’s World-circa 1985, that’s because OMD were thinking like this back then, ahead of their time.
Given a big stage on which to breathe, new songs such as the dystopian-but-dazzling Kleptocracy sounded absolutely enormous. Meanwhile, older favourites – Pandora’s Box and the mischievous one-two of Joan of Arc and Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans), meanwhile, were a wall of sound that, in a modern age with more modern tech, sounded even more advanced than when they were first recorded. If the band’s Royal Albert Hall turn in 2022 was intentionally nostalgic, here even the oldest cuts looked firmly forward.
Throughout, McCluskey and Humphreys showed what a cracking double act they are. Between songs, the pair batted endearing, almost-awkward banter to one another as though this was a quickly thrown-together do at a working men’s club and neither had remembered to write a setlist. “That’s enough cultural intermission,” grinned McCluskey, following a trio of quieter, more sparse numbers. “Back to mindless dancing and synth-pop.”
Synth-pop, yes. Dancing, loads. Mindless? Never. Almost half a century in, OMD still have the OMG factor, and are as creative, intelligent and daring as ever they were. Plus ça change.
Touring the UK until March 27; ticketmaster.co.uk
