Reviews

Imagine it is Christmas morning, and your nan’s bought you a Greatest Hits of the 1980s' CD. Well, it must have been like Christmas for the 10,000 music lovers gathered at Blickling Hall on Saturday.

They were there for a star-studded special, marking the 10th anniversary of open-air concerts at the picturesque location.

At 7.30 on the dot, Nick Heyward took to the stage. Three songs later he was off, and the next act was on. And that was the form for the evening.

Gig-goers raided their attics

Star line-up

The line-up was arranged in the perfectly ordered form of Nick Heyward, Limahl, Toyah, Carol Decker, Midge Ure, Bananarama, The Weather Girls, Belinda Carlisle, Tony Hadley and Gloria Gaynor.

The gaps between the acts were refreshingly small.

You can probably imagine what the stage looked like (big arch thing in a field, lots of lights, plenty of loud speakers) but I can't speak highly enough of the sound. Although deafening at times, it had a pure, almost CD-like quality.

Even after all these years, the artists had lost nothing vocally. There were a few near-misses though.

Limahl's rendition of Duran Duran's Rio was a bit hairy, and I prayed that Midge Ure wouldn't sing his awful version of The Walker Brothers' No Regrets. He didn't, so I had no regrets about that.

Norfolk audiences can be slow to get going, but for this one they were dancing in the field right from word go. And 'they' in this case were aged 6 to 60.

There were big cheers for T'Pau's eighties' classic China In Your Hand and Tony Hadley's Through The Barricades.

See more photos in our gig gallery

Umbrellas in the air

But when it came to audience participation, you could forget lighters in the air - umbrellas bobbed during The Weather Girls' It's Raining Men.

However, there was a sense of wondering when the main event was going to start.

Given the quality of the bill, I eventually assumed that there would be no big centrepiece to look forward to – this was it.

But it has to be said that Gloria Gaynor did steal the show as the last act. She gave us four songs, ending with a superb rendition of Never Can Say Goodbye, and oh, what’s that other one of hers? Something about surviving.

Definitely a great night, but given that we're now so used to expecting top acts at Blickling, if only all the stars had come on at the end and sang something together – now that would have been a 10th birthday party to remember.

The 1980s' Pop Party came to Blickling Hall on Saturday, 14 July, 2007.