There are very few bands who could walk onto a stage more than half a century into their career and still make the word conventional feel completely irrelevant. Sparks are one of them.

In 2026, Ron and Russell Mael remained gloriously out of step with the rest of the musical world. Their latest live show was part art-pop theatre, part electronic fever dream and part greatest-hits celebration, delivered with the same mischievous intelligence that had defined the duo since the 1970s.

Opening at the Barbican in York with So May We Start, the mood was established immediately. This was not a nostalgia tour dressed up as a comeback. Sparks were looking backwards, sideways and forwards simultaneously. Do Things My Own Way and 'Reinforcements' sat comfortably alongside older favourites, proving just how remarkably consistent the band's eccentric vision had remained.

Russell Mael was the obvious focal point, his extraordinary falsetto still capable of cutting through the most elaborate arrangements with ease. At 72, there was no sense that he was merely preserving a legendary voice; he continued to use it as an instrument of mischief. Ron, meanwhile, remained the wonderfully inscrutable presence at the keyboards, barely giving away a flicker of emotion as the musical chaos unfolded around him.

He was as inquisitive as ever as he asked the York audience what a native of Yorkshire was called; he shouted out various suggestions before he was drowned out by cries of "Yorkshire, Yorkshire" from the sold-out audience.

The set was cleverly constructed. Beat the Clock brought the electronic pulse, while When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way' transformed Sinatra's famously self-assured anthem into something distinctly Sparks: theatrical, funny and just a little absurd.

Then came the moment that everyone had been waiting for. The opening notes of This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us exploded from the speakers and suddenly the decades between its original release and 2026 seemed to disappear. It remained one of pop music's strangest and most thrilling singles, and performed live it sounded as defiantly peculiar as ever.

Their career had been built on reinvention, and that spirit remained intact. Recent material sat naturally beside songs that had been part of their story for decades, rather than feeling like an obligation to promote the past or present.

By the time the final notes rang out, the York audience had been taken through glam, synth-pop, art rock, cabaret and pure theatrical absurdity. Few artists could have made such a strange mixture feel so coherent — and so glorious.