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# MUSIC REVIEW: Bananarama @The Brighton Centre
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/music-review-bananarama-the-brighton-centre/
- Published: 2017-12-04T16:18:18.000Z
- Updated: 2017-12-04T18:08:25.000Z
- Description: Ladies, you’ve been gone too long! Flashing devil horns and baggy dungarees collided as the darlings of chaotic 80s pop, Bananarama, skidded into the Brighton Centre as part of their Original Line-Up Tour – the first, and possibly last, live tour featuring the three founding members!
- Author: Graham Robson
- Tags: Arts, In The South, Music, News, Reviews, Brighton Centre

## Ladies, you’ve been gone too long! Flashing devil horns and baggy dungarees collided as the darlings of chaotic 80s pop, Bananarama, skidded into the Brighton Centre as part of their *Original Line-Up Tour* – the first, and possibly last, live tour featuring the three founding members!

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/web-600-14.jpg)

Long-time twosome **Keren Woodward** and **Sara Dallin** have been victorious in convincing the delectable **Siobhan Fahey** to join them for a UK (and soon, US) tour of glitter, killer heels and tunes, from the humble Swahili beginnings of non-hit *Aie A Mwana* (not one for the hairbrush diva) to the steamy *Cruel Summer*, through to the sheer stilton of the Stock Aitken Waterman-produced hits – beefed up and less ‘tinny’ than the originals. *Cheers Then*, to the live band.

Show openers, their cover of **The Supremes’** *Nathan Jones* and their freewheeling version of *Really Saying Something*, were suitably shambolic, but it was the undeniably cheesy (in a very, very good way) *I Heard a Rumour*, *I Can’t Help It* and *I Want You Back* – complete with dance moves last seen on a dancefloor near you circa 1987 – that transported us back to the time when hair was big but the hits were even bigger!

Whilst backing dancers would have added dynamism, must watch the uber-camp performance of *Love in the First Degree* from the BRIT Awards in 1988, Sara, Keren and Siobhan’s unbridged enthusiasm made this an epic disco party experience dripping with nostalgia – leavened with a backdrop of videos and outtakes from the ‘80s, side-wards glances (a Bananarama staple) and jovial, easy banter.

There were nods to post-Siobhan too – a chilling and dramatic rendition of the Shakespear’s Sister hit *Stay* saw Sara and Keren take on the mammoth task of Marcella Detroit’s quasi-operatic verses before Siobhan burst out all moon child for the sinister line, *“You’d Better Hope and Pray…”*. Shuv then returned the favour by insisting they perform *Preacher Man*, one of the *Nanas* post-Siobhan hits! It’s no match for *Stay*, but then what is?

The biting and busty *Venus* has surely never sounded so good, and the singalong *Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye* blew the roof off, before the enormous 1987 hit *Love in the First Degree* brought proceedings to a high-NRG end.

If you missed Bananarama this time around, then tickets are still available for their second show at the Brighton Centre on Friday, December 8.