Bands re-reunited

Cable channel VH1 is making much of its show Bands Reunited. Twenty years on, they round up the estranged members of an MTV-friendly 80s group and get them to perform. Tonight it was the turn of ABC, whose album The Lexicon of Love was a pop classic (the reissue can be ordered from Amazon here if you don't believe me). 'Together for the first time in 20 years' went the accompanying hype.

Except the continuing 1980s revival means that in one form or another it's as if they never went away. I personally worked security at their 1997 comeback gig at Sheffield City Hall, watching Martin Fry stumble through a few numbers and getting told off by his wife because she wasn't on the guest list. Heaven 17 got back early off a Siberian tour, they claimed, to come and watch, while various Human League members were reputedly dotted around the venue.

Although the geographical distances may be greater, the 1980s revival makes Bands Reunited not unlike the 18 year-old school leavers using Friendsreunited.co.uk to locate and link up with people they last saw a few months earlier.