Scotland's answer to U2 have done a bit of downsizing in recent times; no longer the stadium-filling megaband of old, Simple Minds have found themselves sliding into commercially nonviable middle age, and have been forced to reduce their grandiose expectations. The Olympia Theatre is not quite the chicken-in-a-basket circuit, but for a band which filled Croke Park in its Eighties' heyday, the Dame Street venue represents a modest reversal of fortune.
As the suntanned, slightly-rounded figures of Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill took the stage, they looked like prosperous used-Porsche salesmen getting ready to make their pitch once more. Kerr still throws the same shapes: the sweeping arc of the arm and the glory-seeking genuflection, but these affectations now seem like tight clothes which no longer fit.
After a somewhat creaky opening, the band settled into ancient tunes like Up On The Catwalk and Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel, piling on the trusty old bombast and getting the crowd chanting along to a seemingly endless stock of la-la-la hooks. Don't You Forget About Me, however, hasn't improved with age, and last night it sounded like the unwieldy, insipid anthem it always was. But old-hand Kerr quickly had the audience in his sweaty palm, and he held them in thrall with Hypnotized, showing some vestiges of the charismatic performer he used to be. A triple-whammy of Someone Somewhere In Summertime, The Big Sleep and New Gold Dream settled the score, and when they ended with Let There Be Love the crowd responded with a rendition of the Celtic FC favourite, The Fields Of Athenry.
As Simple Minds encored triumphantly with Waterfront, Belfast Child and Alive And Kicking, you had to concede that there was still a bit of life left in the old stadium dogs.
