Thomas' arrival comes preceded by a duo comprising all singing, all dancing backing flouncers who, in jiving to an almost unfeasibly bass-hefty backing track, proffer the superficial impression of Bright Light Bright Light going for a throbbing jugular from the off. He is what collaborator James Yuill could've been had the acoustics been ditched in order to accommodate for vibrant gyration; had he cased the glasses and cracked open the Fake Bake. For Rod is immaculate in aesthetic – a lost son from the bestest, most adorable boy band ITV failed to throw together. Profusely confident, thrust the boyo up onstage and he assumes the charisma the elate dance-pop début Make Me Believe In Hope lacked, as the Fenech-Soler-styled Waiting For The Feeling shimmies into life.
Thomas stands stage-centre; resolute throughout as his vocal lines remain impeccably faithful to their recorded counterparts. Musically, too, it's unerringly as was. And herein lies the issue with the live show: in eschewing the backing of a band in any way musical, the flow to the show comes predetermined by a Discman, boombox, or whatever it may be blurting out a restructured slew of album tracklisting. The pair that he not so much relies upon as relishes prancing about almost as though personified handbags may not quite be Pepsi & Shirlie, although in their infallible effort they to a degree equilibrate this devastating lack of live instrumentation.
This deficiency is only exacerbated as Del Marquis emerges for a racy Cry At Films, the record again accurately replicated given the Scissor Sisters guitar slinger's solitary Make Me Believe In Hope contribution. Marquis covers plenty of fret during an alas fleeting cameo, as the two doppelgängers recite some concertedly exasperated, if perhaps overwrought motions.
"I've been waiting to play in this room for as far as I can remember", he at one point witters in his winsome Welsh pretty boy brogue yet this is the one occasion on which he employs the first person singular. Otherwise, it's all we's and we'ves. It's endearing to see such camaraderie, not least because despite the double repetition in the moniker, Thomas is Bright Light Bright Light. He has that X Factor awareness – only too conscious of how many eyes may be converged upon him at any one time. Moves may signify a slight downturn in mood, sounding like a belated take on Delays' melodramatic glister-pop but it's a lyric from within – "I try my best but then what's the use?" – that succinctly encapsulates the futile plight of the support act. And there are deplorably few baby blues headed in his; sorry, their direction.
They close with the synthetic propeller pummel of Disco Moment, a rhetorical conundrum concerning whether to stay out dancing when, regrettably, Thomas can only repeatedly concede: "I want to go home." Then what? "You make it so hard to be around."A lyric directed at an unknown love interest doubtless, it nonetheless makes for an unhappy ending when placed within the context of tonight. And this proves tragic; problematic almost, given how omnipotent some of these so-called disco moments have sounded previous to this. Thomas comports himself according to the casual exuberance of a young George Michael to the again Tropicana tunage of Good Times, as though an already parodical, yet in no way pejorative parody of the self; Love Part II plays like Speak & Spell-time Depeche Mode, before the arresting addictions and heavy industrial infections began to take their toll.
Although it's forthcoming single, Feel It, that consummately unites '90s disco-daubed house with palpably human, touchy-feely lyrical subject matter to combine in a track irrefutably tailored to an ecstatic club setting. Lyrics of "sweat that drips all over your body" could surely have J-Lo jiggling perturbingly seductively for her papi, as Thomas clings to the hope in his heart that his someone, somewhere "be the reason the lights go out." It's scrupulously honed pop that's equal parts Scissors and Screamadelica, and it's pushed through by dance routines and pouts to prove its throwback credentials. "Something to scream about", it serves as brilliant evidence of the lights being no less dim than they were before the troupe headed out in support of the unendurable Ellie Goulding. Bright Light Bright Light am byth then, or so it'd seem beneath such garish illumination.
