When Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark emerged from the Wirral in 1979, they were never quite cool enough for the left-field synthesiser-music vanguard. Yes, they were signed to Factory Records and had a prerequisite arty name (chosen over Margaret Thatcher’s Afterbirth). But OMD dressed like suburban bank clerks and singer-bassist Andy McCluskey danced like someone at an office party who’d had one too many shandies. Even their more experimental tracks had pretty melodies. All this was enough for Factory boss Tony Wilson to tell McCluskey that his band were “the future of pop music”.
Which indeed they were. After signing to Richard Branson’s label Virgin in the early 80s, the group racked up 13 Top 40 hits and sold 40m records. They are now celebrating what McCluskey calls their 40th birthday with a tour, despite splitting for a decade in 1996.
In 2019, McCluskey’s dancing has become more exaggerated and outrageous. He windmills and pulls crucifixion poses, careers around as if he’s at a vigorous aerobics class and at one point resembles a hippy undergoing a psychedelic experience. Titter we may, but McCluskey’s antics are part of OMD’s show: you could never accuse them of being one of those “blokes standing behind synthesiser” bands. (Although the four-piece lineup does include two blokes standing behind synthesisers.)
McCluskey, of course, is in on the joke, telling the audience not to replicate his moves in case they “hurt each other” and introducing the song Tesla Girls by saying: “And now the dancing really starts.” He describes the setlist as “old ones, new ones, weird ones and definitely dancey ones”. Tracks from 2017’s The Punishment of Luxury, which returned them to the Top 5, brilliantly retool their classic sound. Weird comes in the form of Factory B-side Almost, and Stanlow is an electronic elegy about the unlikely subject of an oil refinery in Liverpool. Messages and Souvenir – the latter sung by co-founder Paul Humphreys, stepping out from behind his keyboard – are electronic symphonies almost statuesque in their beauty. Joan of Arc and Maid of Orleans teleport the crowd back to the days when OMD made not one but two stellar pop singles about the French saint who was burned at the stake.
Modern technology and computer graphics mean OMD sound pristine and look far more futuristic than their wildest dreams in 1979, when a Revox reel-to-reel tape machine on stage was hi-tech. There’s more of a party atmosphere at their shows these days, too. When the hits start piling up and McCluskey yells, “Let me see your hands,” the entire audience oblige, and Wirral’s Kraftwerk turn all Queen at Live Aid. The songs So in Love, Pandora’s Box, Locomotion, Sailing on the Seven Seas and the rest are classy, clap-along electropop. By now, McCluskey is playing air keyboard and asking the cheering crowd to “dance your socks off” for Enola Gay.
“We’re going to end where we began,” he urges, introducing Electricity. Their debut single is now a timeless marvel – The Magic Roundabout theme played from outer space – although McCluskey, a trim, perfectly voiced 60, has his own theory about why OMD remain in such fine fettle: “People have taken the piss out of my dancing for 40 years, but it keeps me fit.”
• At Bonus Arena, Hull, on 28 October (sold out). Then touring the UK until 20 November.
