On Wednesday 8th July 2026 I went to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, better known as OMD for a second time. The venue on this occasion being Bradford Live and I was accompanied by my good friend Chris. Support was provided by Andrew Cushin, a singer-songwriter from the North East. It was brought to my attention he had played the Grayston Unity here in Halifax the previous evening. I found him to be fairly entertaining with a couple of good songs. The final track he played was probably the highlight although, I don’t know the title.
This was my second time seeing OMD. The first time was in Leeds in 2024 however, I was unwell during that gig and so, I was really looking forward to seeing them again with a clean bill of health.
This tour has been dubbed as the “Summer of Hits” tour. As it turned out, they performed nineteen songs of which, I knew sixteen very well, one song a little bit and there were just two tracks that I wasn’t familiar with.
The show was split into two halves effectively. The first part was described as “Atomic Ranch”. The opening song “Isotype” was one of the songs I had not heard previously. I would describe it as a typical OMD track. Synth heavy and very electronic. The second unfamiliar track “Veruschka” opened what was classed as the second half of the show, which was allocated the name “The Rock Drill”. It reminded me of how much the band are influenced by German outfit Kraftwerk. I really liked “Isotype” but wasn’t too keen on “Veruschka”. I would say the latter song was the weakest on the night.
The other track I that I wasn’t really familiar with was “History of Modern, Part 2”. I’ve got to say I really enjoyed this. It was joyous and had the crowd bouncing along to it.
The band had plenty of hits to select from and I was delighted when they played “Talking Loud and Clear” as that had been omitted on the previous occasion that I saw them.
They went on to perform all their classic hits including the fantastic “Enola Gay” as the final track before they went off and then returned for an encore.
The three tracks included during the encore were “Walking on the Milky Way”, “Pandora’s Box”, which I recorded partly for my girlfriend as it is her favourite OMD track, and the closer was “Electricity” which was their breakthrough UK Top 40 chart hit. It seemed appropriate they should end with that number.
Other highlights were “Tesla Girls”, “Joan of Arc”, “Maid of Orleans”, “If You Leave” and “Locomotion”. To be fair all their singles are of a decent standard. In my opinion, the only significant singles that were missing on the night were “Genetic Engineering” and “Telegraph”. These were ones I would have liked to hear.
Overall, this was a really enjoyable evening in a good venue. The crowd seemed to be very into it all and Chris said it was one of the best gigs he had been to. One surprising aspect was that the show was over at 10pm however, they did come on stage at 8:30pm so, it didn’t feel we had been shortchanged.
I would rate the show as four out of five stars. I’m seeing them again in August in Rochdale.