IF WILL or Gareth stripped to their undies on stage, I'd be shocked and embarrassed.

With Erasure's Andy Bell, though, you'd be disappointed if he didn't end up exposing vast amounts of flesh. (Or not so vast, as it happens; the camp crooner is looking pretty trim for an 80s electropop pioneer.)

True to form, within about 20 minutes Andy was prancing around in a pair of fetching black panties. Rather wonderfully, though, he does it without a hint of suggestiveness - just that teasing child-like twinkle in his eye.

Andy-in-pants was the final stage of a striptease which began with him taking to the stage - decked out like an Edwardian drawing room, complete with chaise longue and aspidistras - in a shiny fitted jacket and billowing black skirt.

Anyone fearing that Erasure might have mellowed with age was proved resoundingly wrong. And how glad we were for that.

This was one of the best, brashest nights out I've had in a long time. From the onstage theatrics to the bombastic brilliance of the music, it encapsulated all the best bits of the 80s in one shamelessly OTT package.

I haven't listened to Erasure for a long time, but this show has sent me back to their records.

From their first hit, Sometimes, to the sublime Breath of Life and Chorus, they represent pop at its life-affirming best. Live, they sounded better than I remembered, the combination of Andy's emotionally charged voice and Vince Clarke's national grid-sapping electronics fully deserving the rapturous response it got.