Susan at Lovebox                                                                     

Lovebox is a medium sized London festival that grew out of a dance club night thought up by Groove Armada’s Andy Cato and Tom Findlay, hence it attracts a younger 'Urban’ / ‘Trendy’ crowd, more so than say other more mainstream festivals. It was always going to be a challenging gig for THL as they had been afforded joint headline status, not just a retro novelty filler slot. Exacerbated by the fact that most of their hits would hail from a period before most of their audience were even born and even the most recent album (2001) would be when the audience were still in secondary school. To be fair, there was not much of a risk of the band being poorly received. From the moment the band’s iconic white equipment and Dare backdrop of Susan, Philip, and Joanne was unveiled the crown were hypnotized. Then from the first song “Seconds” they were eating out of the band’s hand. Most major hits were played, from “Tell Me When” to “Together in Electric Dreams” etc, even if it would have been the first time they were heard, save for the sound track of video games. Then the track everyone (in the world) knows “Don’t You Want Me” drove the audience wild. Susan, showing off her new hairdo, was onstage in a frilly knee length rainbow dress. The bright London sunshine (a rarity for a summers day in London) had made her don sunglasses for the start of the gig, unintentionally making her look even more the superstar that she is. But now for DYWM she had pushed them to the top of her head to begin her iconic soliloquy. Clearly having a great time on stage, she whipped up the crowd and got them to sing "I still love you" back at her, you know by this point they really meant it!

 
 THL Stage Set                                                                                            Susan on venue giant video screen