Produced By Trevor Horn - Wembley Arena, 11/11/04

The numbers are impressive: 25 years of hits, 6,500 in the audience, 13 acts and one royal. Add to that the pomp of a full orchestra and the personal touch of song-by-song commentary by Horn himself and you have a unique night.

Trevor Horn’s anniversary testimonial for the Princes Trust was presented more or less in chronological order. Which meant that Buggles opened the show, followed by Dollar, ABC, Yes, Propaganda and then Belle & Sebastian. After the interval (presumably for a royal toilet break), Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Seal and tATu brought the story up to date, before Frankie Goes To Hollywood closed the show with a bang.

The house band were a key element of this concert. Lol Creme, various members of Yes, Art of Noise and Buggles’ Geoff Downes were the ones that allowed such a variety of performers to work together seamlessly. The crowd didn’t work together half as well. Disappointed Simple Minds fans (Jim Kerr pulling out after an ear complaint) sat alongside 80s enthusiasts there for partially reformed and, it has to be said, butt-kicking ABC and Frankie, who in turn sat alongside long-haired Yes-sers and shaven-haired Pet Shoppers

So it was the artists with true charisma that got everyone in the arena on their feet and dancing together. Grace Jones did it first, dominating the stage for a stunning Slave To The Rhythm. And Seal followed through, jumping off to deliver most of Killer from within the crowd.

Horn hardly left the stage for the whole evening – singing back-up or playing bass, or darting around playing host. “I’m going to vanish back into the studio for the next 25 years,” he said at the end. But I’m not sure I believe him.

Fila Brazilia – Dicks (Twentythree)

Fila Brazilia have always been a class name to drop by fans of jazzy electronica. But aside from listing founder Steve Cobby’s Heights of Abraham offshoot as a “gem” in RC 301, I’ve never properly checked the band out. So with the release of Dicks, the Hull-based duo’s tenth album released on their fifteenth anniversary, I felt the time was long overdue.

By track five I can say that I’m a Fila convert. It’s much more melodic than I expected (and than electronic experimentalism often is) and also more daring production- and instrumentation-wise than anything equally as jazzy.

Dicks (and the band have made sure they’ve used every pun on the title you could imagine) has 29 tracks across 59 minutes. Some of which comprise random found sounds (An Impossible Place, VD and Curveball for the 21st Century). Others (like The Great Atracrtor, The Giggle Box, and Heil Mickey) are the deepest funkiest grooves, like a cross between Crosstown Traffic, Bullet, early Egg, late Biting Tongues and so on. Personally I’m quite taken with the upbeat, melodic and mellow tracks like Shellac and We’ve Almost Surprised Me – both arriving at the wrong end of the year to be summer chill out classics.

If, like me, you’re well overdue to check out Fila Brazilia then make this your first taster. I’m off to check their A Certain Ratio remix EP…