If you’re not familiar with John Foxx, he was the founding member & lead singer of Ultravox, recording 3 albums with them before he left to go solo. He’s made many albums since and has become an active live performer again over the last few years. To find out more about him take a look at this brief biography at All Music and also his website Metamatic.

It was good to see John performing once more here in Norwich, this time again with Louis Gordon. I saw him at the UEA in December 2005 when he & Louis were the support to the Human League. This time he was here on his own tour at the Norwich Arts Centre. Due to restrictions at the UEA I wasn’t able to get photos then, but was pleased to get permission from John on the night this time.

The weather here in the UK over this period was extremely hot and muggy with very high humidity levels (for us that is!). Outdoor events were being cancelled due to vegetation fire risk, and even farmers being told they were about to get water cuts!

Everyone remained out in the Arts Centre gardens as long as possible, watching the sky slowly darken as an electric storm approached.

The forked lightning everywhere was amazing, but the temperature inside kept going up and up. By the time John came on the storm was just about to break and you could see already that he & Louis were getting rapidly saturated!

Just as the lights came up on the first number the stormy atmosphere caused the main lighting rig to trip and the two guys ended up playing the first number to a single white light each, whilst the time needed before the main lights could be re-struck marched on!! (Gas discharge lamps need a period before they can be turned on again.)

I think by the time the set was over and the encores finished, we’d all probably lost a pound or two - it must have been 100 degrees in there! Nipping out for some air halfway through we could see the Heaven’s had opened and the rain was absolutely torrential - we could hardly see across the gardens. By the time we came out at the end it had stopped and the air was thankfully a bit cooler and more bearable - but not by much!

A good night none-the-less.