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So instead a barrage of new material, we got a greatest hits package spanning their joint careers. From Claudia's back catalogue we got "Baby Sigh" from her obscure solo album, plus a towering version of "Snobbery & Decay". Although at the time this seemed a disappointing return compared to her Propaganda material, it now stands head and shoulders above everything else in her subsequent career. Paul carried off the Thomas Leer vocals flawlessly. The best received song of the night was without a doubt "Duel". At the time they were around, Paul Morely (later to marry Claudia) described Propaganda as a vision of Abba from hell. Some of that vision got reunited tonight as ex-Propagandist Susanne Freytag joined One Two on stage to deliver her vocal contributions to "Dr Mabuse" and "p:Machinery" The OMD songs in the set concentrated on their fair-to-middling pop years - "So In Love", "If You Leave" and "Forever Live & Die", although there was a hint of some earlier material. Paul introduced "Electricity" by saying that he had played it at every gig he had ever done, so couldn't resist. Mind you that didn't stop the band making a complete pigs ear of the introduction, and them having to stop and re-start. At one point Paul suggested OMD purists should put their fingers in their ears as they played "Almost", the b-side of their first single 25 years ago. "Souvenir" also made a welcome appearance, with Claudia on keyboard duties for the only time in the evening. I couldn't help feeling that the flashy drum-fills being executed in the background didn't quite go with the understated nature of the original version - but then, what do I know? "He was always the wimpy one in a wimpy band" was the verdict from my friend. By the end Paul looked like he was enjoying himself, although I couldn't get out of my head the thought that he looked a bit like Dick out of Third Rock From The Sun pretending to be a pop star. Claudia, by contrast, didn't always look so happy to be there - and at times gave the air of being a bit disinterested. However her voice retained the necessary icy edge, and whilst she may not look as glamourous as she did in the chain mail vest she wore for the cover art of "A Secret Wish" back in nineteen-eighty-x, she still had an air of decadent European cool about her. Putting two elements of two different eighties acts together in this way meant there was a similar division in the crowd. OMD were the more commercially successful of the bands, whereas Claudia Brücken's career has had a fanatic cult following. The audience seemed divided 50/50, with old tracks greeted euphorically by different halves of the audience. The show was their first for around four years, and the nervousness showed. The new songs didn't sound earth-shattering, although further digging around on the web has found a couple of clips to listen to, and the material sounds much better in its recorded form. They weren't helped by some poor sound engineering, particularly in the early part of the set when Claudia veered between being inaudible or drenched in feedback. In the end it was highly enjoyable...but what an odd couple.
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