8pm

As family and Friends began to arrive, the atmosphere started to become electric. The Late Show began the entertainment with some well executed covers, delivered mostly to a long line of people queueing for the buffet. At 9:45pm, Mike Rimmer stepped up onto the stage and introduced the next band - After The Fire. To an enormous cheer, Banks, Piercy, Russell and Neil (20 years after first auditioning for the band!) hobbled onto the stage accompanied by the traditional Thunderbirds intro music (the "Pipe and slippers" version according to Piercy.) Then they kicked off with Joy. Or rather they stubbed their toe on it - a lost contact rendered the essential keyboard sound all but inaudible, and Russell had to hold back on guitar to compensate. The sound people milled about, poking and pulling things until the synths were restored in time for Listen To Me.

The main set continued as follows:

Joy
Listen To Me
Dancing In The Shadows
Der Kommissar
Whose Gonna Love You
Frozen Rivers
One Rule For You
Life In The City
Laser Love
1980-F
Starflight

There were, of course, many mistakes during the set, and given the way the soundcheck had gone, it was almost to be expected. But it simply didn't matter. The band had great fun, and were joking with other about the problems they were having at times. Whenever anyone lost their way, they just stretched out a few more bars until everyone could catch up, before moving on. Piercy was making use of lyric sheets, and Russell enjoyed this, claiming that he couldn't see it. Introducing Whose Gonna Love You, Piercy wondered wether they should do it given its subject ("We can all say that now"), which produced laughs in the audience.

The only 'new' material introduced into the set was as rehearsed, when they interpolated Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow into 1980-F - a nice touch, which worked really well. For many in the audience - particularly the teenagers, this was the first time they had, or even could have seen the band, and it must have been a wonderful evening. During One Rule, everyone, young and old (and I particularly enjoyed seeing Banksy's mum doing this) clapped along with their arms in the air. Quite a few of the youngsters were to be seen in ATF t-shirts - presumably because they were the only ones who would fit them. At one point, Piercy remarked "Oh, to be twenty again." - "Yeah", said Russell, "Hang on, you were thirty". Laughter all round.

As the show went on, the band became more and more confident, and began to find their spark. By the time they reached the last song, Starflight, they were really into it, and the punters were loving it. They left the stage and retreated to the dressing room, but after some token persuasion from Mike Rimmer, soon returned. Then, as if the evening wasn't historic enough, it became even more eventful, when Piercy introduced Ivor Twidell. He sauntered on to the stage to an enormous cheer, and sat behind the drum kit, tapping it and giving it some experimental beats. Piercy had introduced the next song as Check It Out in Twidell's honour - "How does it go?" said Twidell as he got comfortable. He beat out the opening pattern - gave a deep laugh - and After The Fire, c. 1979 was reformed. Piercy was so taken aback by it all, he completely forgot to sing! Given the years since he'd last played with the band, Twidell was practically spot on, and was loving it, but played safe and didn't stay for the final encore.

Neil returned to the kit, and together, they finished with Power Of A Jet. At 10:55pm, they left the stage as the house music played Queen's Those Were The Days Of Our Lives. A few moments later Banks returned to thank everyone for a great evening. My mind was swimming with emotion as everyone buzzed about me, and just for a moment, I remembered leaving the Rainbow Theatre and returning to my Hall of Residence in Camden, one cold November evening, 20 years ago.

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