Level 42 / Roachford – Birmingham Symphony Hall – Friday 3rd October

The year is 1985. The Titanic is discovered in its watery resting place. Microsoft Windows 1.0 is launched. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide watch the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia. A British pop/funk/jazz band release an album entitled World Machine. 40 years later, they play it live for their fans.

Get Ready!

Opening the show was the reliably crowd pleasing pop/soul stalwart Roachford (last seen with Mike & The Mechanics in York) whose tight band and energetic performance were so good that it was easy to forget that this was ‘just’ the support and there was more yet to come.

A Physical Presence

Following an interval and the adjustment of the stage, the house lights went down, Level 42 walked on and immediately launched into the title track. No introduction, no time wasting, no walk-on performance, no teasing, just straight down to business. Later on in the set, bass guitarist and front man Mark King paused to let everyone know that it had been 40 years since the release of the album and so they were playing it all the way through. 5,000 people in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall knew that already but were delighted at the reminder.

The Symphony Hall is no ordinary music venue. It doesn’t have matt black walls or lager soaked sticky flooring. There is no pit and no burly security guards blocking the view of the stage. Instead, it has salmon pink comfy seating arranged in multiple layers of horseshoe shaped rows. It was built for orchestras. It is a venue custom made to listen, properly and intently, to good music. Not designed for dancing, this presents an interesting dilemma for bands such as Level 42.

Their music isn’t thrown together in an afternoon at the recording studio, it gives the impression of being lovingly crafted, every syncopated note, every synth program, every slap bass rhythm placed exactly where it is supposed to be. On the other hand, Level 42 created some genuine dancefloor fillers. The result was that one minute the audience were sitting quietly, soaking up the memories and the next, everyone was on their feet, arms in the air, reliving the glory days.

Good Man in a Storm

The two heavy hitters of the album, Something About You and Leaving Me Now come as tracks 3 and 4. It was good to see that the band had not been tempted to change the sequence in order to save the best until last as has been the case with other bands performing similar anniversary tours. This implied a certain reverence for the music which seemed to complement both the choice of venue and the functional presentation.

Mark King’s voice has perhaps lost some of its effortless quality over the years since the album was recorded. Some transposition has helped to ease the strain, at other times a more staccato vocal quality came forwards. Whilst King sings the majority of songs, one of Level 42’s distinctive features has always been the complementary voice of Mike Lindup, keyboard maestro and alternate lead singer. Usually sitting in the background and providing slick, smooth, stylish harmonies, Lindup comes to centre stage for songs such as Starchild. It has to be said that his voice has not changed at all in 40 years, retaining its wonderfully stylish, mid-Atlantic, mid-80s soul sound. Overall, this is a band which has matured musically in those 40 years but hasn’t lost sight of what its purpose is.

The Sun Goes Down

Once World Machine had concluded with the gentle finale of Lying Still, the second half of the evening kicked off, a little biased towards the follow up album Running In The Family. To Be With You Again was the opening and Lessons In Love closed the evening’s celebrations.

Of course, everyone knew that this couldn’t be the end of the matter because there was at least one very important song missing from the set list. The predictable encore therefore delivered -Heaven In My Hands, The Chinese Way and finally the song which probably put Level 42 on the pop music map back in 1984: Hot Water.

The World Machine 40th Anniversary tour continues across the UK until mid November 2025.

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