The year is 1982, you’re 12 years old and you’re standing at the front of the stage in De Montfort Hall, Leicester, wearing your best Adam and the Ants t-shirt with a black cross next to both eyes, which you made by begging your mum to borrow some of her black eyeliner. You’re waiting excitedly for your favourite band to come on, finally seeing your idol in the flesh, you turn around and see the stadium full of people all just as excited as you. The lights go down. The crowd goes wild as the English rock band walk onto the stage.
You blink and look around. It’s 2019. You’re almost 50 years old and everyone else here is too, Adam Ant is 65 but the nostalgia takes you back 40 years with everyone wearing the make up and the outfits.
The lights come up and out blasts the tune to Friend or Foe and the fully grown crowd are roaring and an amazing atmosphere fills the room when everyone starts dancing and singing, 45 year old women reaching out to him just like they would have done in their adolescence.
He played the whole of his album Friend or Foe in the first hour before playing all his older punk music and a lot of his B-side music (for the younger people that’s the lesser known music on a record (a big old fashioned CD)). No matter what he was singing though, the crowd didn’t stop singing or dancing.
The lights go down after every song getting the audience very excited for the next one to start, Adam Ant says a loud thank you after every song but not much else. Although he doesn’t talk much he still has the crowds attention, and when he does string together a sentence through his puffs of breaths whilst using his knees for support, he always came out with something that made the audience laugh or cheer.
At one point he asked everyone if they were ready for him to “slow it down and sing a ballad”, everyone cheers as he asked a few times before looking out into the crowd and saying “naaaaaah” whilst shaking his head and jumping straight into another one of his earlier songs which was just as lively.
Despite his age he still gave his best shot at doing all his old dance moves and moving around the stage like he’s 20 and still put on a 10/10 performance, however, just with more wincing, heavy breathing and resting on his knees.