Altered Images, review: Clare Grogan's giddy, high-kicking return has all the power of her youth
She may have turned sixty the day before, but Clare Grogan stormed the stage at London’s 229 venue glammed up to the nines. Sporting peroxide blonde hair, silver lamé trousers, stack heels and over-sized black circular sunglasses, this skittish pin-up of the New Wave era swiftly gyrated and high-kicked her way through a couple of introductory hits from yesteryear with a reconstituted Altered Images.
The giddy I Could Be Happy and the more subtly playful See Those Eyes reinvoked the image of Grogan as the late-teenage arriviste cavorting through a high-life of exotic videos and posh parties.
Like the bubbles on a freshly poured glass of Prosecco, however, for Grogan those joys were short-lived, and she’s been something of an enigma in the intervening years.
In a similar vein to other pop dominators of the mid-’80s, such as Duran Duran and Adam Ant, Altered Images rose from post-punk’s dark energies. They appropriated their name from the design credit on a Buzzcocks single sleeve, and played their debut gigs supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees. As luridly remembered in Tenement Kid, the new autobiography from Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, who first broke onto the Glasgow music scene as their roadie, Altered Images became the Banshees’ little sibling project, with bassist Steve Severin producing their debut album, Happy Birthday.
The LP’s title track, however, revealed an anachronistically effervescent pop sensibility: it led to whirlwind fame, bolstered by Grogan’s starring role in Scots teen movie, Gregory’s Girl. She became the inspiration for Spandau Ballet’s True (writer Gary Kemp was infatuated with her), but where Spandau, Duran and Ant carved out an enduring career, Altered Images imploded in 1983 after just three albums, and Grogan’s solo ventures foundered.
For many years, it seemed that fame had rather messed up her head. She earnt a crust via sporadic acting parts (Red Dwarf, Father Ted and as Ian Beale’s squeeze in EastEnders) and eventually signed up for a series of nostalgia tours in the noughties.
But now, back performing live in London, Grogan, as with so many artists reaching her time of life, transmitted a manic thrill at still being able to strut her stuff onstage. At one point, she reached for a top note, but only her female backing singer nailed it. “Sorry, that bit’s too high for me!” she shrugged, with a carefree giggle, and shimmied on regardless.
Very quickly, Friday night's show became a vehicle for unveiling Mascara Streakz, her first album of new material in 39 years. As per the sparkly trousers, its direction soon unfolded as straight-down-the-line disco, offset by lyrics of melancholy reflection. Even an avowedly four-on-the-floor hustle called Glitterball, for which her three-piece backing combo was augmented by co-writer Bernard Butler, was tinged with later-life regret – all very Kylie and anything but insubstantial.
The new material’s mature tenor, though, made for a somewhat uneven show: soon they were romping through Altered Images’ spiteful, Banshees-esque debut single, Dead Pop Stars, and, none too explicably, The Ting Tings’ hit from 2008, That’s Not My Name.
Steadier ground finally arrived with Grogan’s husband and co-writer Stephen Lironi (“the Lindsey Buckingham of the band) joining on guitar for Don’t Talk to Me About Love, but this comeback was only ever going to end one way, and the tootling intro of Happy Birthday duly ushered in a mega-loud singalong.
“We’re – still – young!” Grogan breathlessly proclaimed through the applause. This time, you sensed, she won’t let that youthful zest go to waste.
Altered Images tour the UK until April 29
