Review: Simple Minds at Bedgebury Pinetum, Friday, June 10

by Helen Geraghty

A sea of 4,000 black and gray padded anoraks headed for Bedgebury forest amid torrential Wealden downpours to see Scottish rockers Simple Minds play their open air concert on Friday.

The rain stopped, as if by magic, the black clouds rolled away. And the crowd - 70 per cent badly dressed middle-aged British men - knew emotions were going to be thick in the air whether frontman Jim Kerr sang favourites from two decades ago, or waded in with a load of new stuff.

And they were right. Kerr picked this audience up, went right to their soul and out the other side.

He'd left his dodgy leggings in the attic and in new white blazer and black jeans, the power and energy of the act all these years on was undiminished.

Waterfront and Satisfy kicked it all off and all eyes were on Kerr for the start of a non-stop two hour set.

This veteran of the touring scene told them: "It's a pleasure to be in this beautiful part of the country. I think it is the first time... but what would I know?"

Up on the Catwalk, from the album Sparkle in the Rain, and Mandela Day, a song specially written for the Free Nelson Mandela concert at Wembley in 1988, all went down well.

Then huge cheers for Someone Somewhere in Summertime, absolutely my own favourite from my days as a student at a polytechnic.

Back then New Gold Dream, on a cassette tape was a guarantee to social success. And the crowd sang on, not always tunefully but always enthusiastically.

Don't You (Forget About Me) was up next. But I HAD forgotten how good Glittering Prize sounded then and sounded again now in the open air and among the trees, for real.

Promised you a Miracle, Alive and Kicking, they were all there, and there was some brilliant new songs too.

Money generated through ticket sales is invested back into UK woodlands through organiser the Forestry Commission,, which always make these well-run concerts something worth heading back to year after year.

I had to edge my way out just before the end, as hypothermia was setting in among the tired kids, despite them being wrapped in a nice man's picnic blanket.

But arriving home, I could easily hear the final songs in our garden, nearly five miles away.

As the last notes died away the downpour fell again, like some extra rinse on a heavenly washing machine and it went on most of the night.

But we had had two hours of dry clear skies for Simple Minds to play Bedgebury.

A miracle indeed.