Soft Cell 'lost in the moment' opening Radio 2 festival

BBC Radio 2 in the Park is officially underway, with Soft Cell belting out a crowd-pleasing string of hits. And Marc Almond, the duo's frontman, admits the occasion got the better of him at one point - with him forgetting the words and singing the same verse twice!

Chatting backstage after the show, he told LeicestershireLive: "I overwhelmed myself! I don't normally get nervous but going out at 1 in the afternoon, in the sunshine, I hadn't got my normal head on!

"I held it together for the first two songs at least. But what a lovely crowd, we've been doing festivals all year, and what and end to the year this is for us."

READ MORE: Live updates as Radio 2 in the Park comes to Leicester with thousands set to watch star-studded line-up

Soft Cell's show was a string of hits - plus a few new numbers too - ending with a proper singalong. Tainted Love and Where Did Our Love Go? were mashed together, before the crowd waved hello and said goodbye in unison. I asked if, after more than four decades, they ever got fed up of playing the big hits.

"Never!" said Marc. "That's like a holiday for the crowd. When we've done everything and played what we want, they always forgive us, it ends on a high."

It's those hits that's taken the band on the incredible journey they've been on to play in front of thousands in Victoria Park today, as one of the bands that fans were most keen to see on the bill. "We started out as an art college band, quite experimental, playing punk venues in the north of England," said Marc.

"We never expected to be going to a commercial world. Then we had Memorabilia which was a big dance hit followed by Tainted Love which was a big chart record.

"But were were always experimenting, with our beats, and our choruses. We grew up listening to 7" singles, two-and-a-half, three minute long songs. It's these short little stories that inspired us."

So will Soft Cell be back to Leicester any time soon? "It's been a long time since we've played here," muses Marc. "About 20 years I think. We don't do a lot of shows so there's a lot of places we haven't played in a while, but this was a great crowd today, it's been nice to be able to visit again."