Some gigs gain importance due the musicians performing rather than just the name of the band they appear as. Whilst many would have heard of The Buggles, few would probably be that concerned with their reforming. After all, how many can name more than ONE hit by The Buggles!

However when you look at who formed The Buggles and see that they were made up of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes you start to realise the important place that The Buggles had in popular music history. Add into that mix Lol Creme of 10CC on guitar and the other guitarist being Stephen Lipson who played on many of the major songs of the 80s and 90s and you start to get a feel for why this gig drew so many people from the industry.

Tonight’s gig was held in a tent, it just happens to be one of the world’s biggest and goes by the name of The O2 arena. Although the main area was given over to “forever young” Cliff Richard, We were relegated into the wonderful best kept secret known as The Bristish Music Experience (BME). The BME is a marvellous interactive museum dedicated to British Music and should definitely be on everyone’s agenda if they visit the O2 for a gig at the main arena or the smaller Indig02 space. The small performance space was ideal for this gig as tonight was as much a live exhibition as a normal performance.

So let’s look at the sum of the parts. Trevor and Geoff formed The Buggles with the aim of making music on computer. They never were a band that were destined for live work. At the time it wasn’t really possible to play live what you could do in the studio.

Their huge world-wide number one hit Video killed the radio star couldn’t even change that and this is only the third time that The Buggles have performed. To be more precise, one of those times wasn’t really The Buggles but Radio Star was played as part of a Prince’s Trust celebration of Trevor Horn’s 25 years in the industry (Produced by Trevor Horn) held at Wembley Arena. Although not officially The Buggles, Trevor was performing along with song co-writer Wooley.

Following The Buggles, Horn and Downes played in rock group Yes. When they split from Yes, Downes joined Asia and Horn went on to form his own record label ZTT and Studio (SARM) before producing records by artists including Seal, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, ABC and Robbie Williams (for his ironically titled album Reality killed the video star).

Talking of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the opening song of tonight’s short nine track set was Frankie’s Two Tribes. The driving guitar really got the gig going. Another Horn/Lipson production aired tonight was the track Slave to the Rhythm. Originally a hit for Grace Jones, tonight the vocal was very well handled by guest Alison Moyet looking very fit still (yes still, check out my review from Last Years Rock Gala).

The set only featured four Buggles tracks which were Radio Star, Plastic Age, Elstree and Johnny on the Monorail.

The rest of the set was made up of 10cc’s Lol Creme doing their first number One hit Rubber Bullets and Horn pulling off a great version of Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Radio Star was played twice tonight, the first time in its normal single format and once again closing for the encore. This time the band covered the Will.i.am and Nicki Manaj track Check it Out which heavily features Radio Star. The band tonight just showed what great musicians they are with their ability to pull off that feat.

Before tonight’s gig, Horn and Downes were introduced by music mogul Harvey Goldsmith and interviewed in front of the audience by BME curator Paul Lilley. A recording of that interview will be available shortly.

At the conclusion of tonight’s gig there was indication that more gigs may follow, I suspect that they are as likely to be as Horn’s other group The Producers as they would be The Buggles. Not that there is too much difference as that would include most of tonight’s band.

I can’t really say that a gig of Buggles material would appeal but hearing this top band of musicians putting together a full set of their collective hits, writing, recording or producing would be a treat at any time.