It might have been the decade that fashion forgot but it seems music lovers have no intention of doing so.
Nearly three decades after they first graced the music scene with their melange of elegantly passionate melodies wrapped in spine-tingling riffs, cult band The Go-Betweens have become the latest Eighties act to reform.
But while bands such as Blondie were lambasted when, despite blonde having turned to grey, they attempted to recapture the old pop-punk thrill, The Go-Betweens' decision to reform after an 11-year hiatus hasn't raised so much as an eyebrow.
Perhaps this is because, as something of an ultimate indie band, Australia's The Go-Betweens are in no danger of failing to rescale the heights of their commercial heydey. Their intelligent, lyrical compositions earned them critical praise and an enthusiastic international fan base but album after album of songs failed to blast their way into the contemporary radio bubble.
Nevertheless, when The Go-Betweens called it a day in 1989, it came as a shock to many, especially as their swan song had yielded their biggest-selling single to date Streets Of Your Town.
The break-up began with Fleetwood Mac-style romantic splits within the band (between songwriters Robert Forster and Grant Mclennnan, drummer Lindy Morri and violinist Amanda Brown). But the final straw came when the band finally had the chance to break America and blew it big time at their opening gig in LA.
"When we came to play the first big show in America, Robert walked on stage in a dress," Mclennan recalls with bemusement. "It was a very funny night but after that, the record company lost interest and it all went a bit pear-shaped."
In 2000 the tentative reunion between songwriters Mclennan and Forster sparked off an unfinished conflagration which had been extinguished prematurely when they parted company a decade earlier. The new album, Oceans Apart, is jam-packed with a cocktail of reassuringly irresistible treats. "It's an adventure," McLennan says.
"It's always been that."
This is a non-Brighton Festival show.
*Starts at 7.30pm. Tickets £10, call 01273 673311
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