Here’s a very straightforward music documentary about Simple Minds – the story of five working-class lads from Glasgow who started a band in 1977, and by the mid-80s were stadium rockers up there with U2. “The most iconic and influential Scottish band in history,” is how the film’s promotional material describes them. (Fans of the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Bay City Rollers and the Waterboys may take umbrage.) Today, only frontman Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill remain of the original lineup – and miraculously they’re still mates. And when Kerr says sweetly that their friendship is one of his greatest achievements, it looks like he really means it.
They started the band in the punk era, then switched to art rock. With his black eyeliner and creepy monk’s fringe, Kerr looked the part of charismatic frontman. In 1982, Simple Minds scored their first hit with Promised You a Miracle, and No 1 albums in the UK followed. Arena-filling megastardom came in 1985 after the release of the single Don’t You (Forget About Me), which featured in John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club. Telling the story for what is clearly the 1,500th time, the band explain they didn’t want to record the track, feeling that it was beneath them to put out a single not of their own writing.
