I FIRST saw Simple Minds in their native Scotland 25 years ago. It was the early 1980s. Margaret Thatcher’s recession was starting to bite.

They sang to hundreds of unemployed Glaswegians of their New Gold Dream, of a Glittering Prize, of how “everything is possible”, and they played their joyous, uplifting melodies, sprinkled with Charlie Burchill’s magical guitar.

For me, the rot set in around 1985 when they found America, they became fat and flabby, and their slogans became empty. Sanctify Yourself, indeed.

But then – with Gordon Brown’s recession beginning to bite – they opened at the freezing Arena with Waterfront, that throbbing, pulsing, living bassline, Burchill’s explosion of guitar, Mel Gaynor’s clatter of drums and Jim Kerr’s hope: “Come in, get out of the rain.”

Everything is forgiven.

They burst into a splendid I Travel, powered by Eddie Duffy’s bass which was outstanding all night, and then Love Song over which Burchill painted his noises. U2’s The Edge and the Smiths’ Johnny Marr are acclaimed as the great guitarists of the 1980s, but Burchill must be up there with them.

They sparkled through New Gold Dream in its entirety, a sumptuous Big Sleep leading into a snippet of Somebody Up There Likes You before the title track, an enormous power chord of uplifting positivism.

After that, even Don’t You Forget About Me – the song which started the rot in my jaundiced eyes – sounded magnificent, a huge stadium singalong of rising and falling tempo.

Kerr – in fine voice – had to be prised off the stage after nearly two hours following the final song, Belfast Child, which made my spine tingle for the first time.

If only they’d left it there, as passionate and as inspiring as three decades ago.

But they returned for She’s A River and Sanctify Yourself which even a final Alive And Kicking couldn’t make up for.

Yet in these grim times, we need to hold on to the power of their hope and the joy of their melody more than ever.