Kicking off your set with your biggest hit is a ballsy move, but that's just what Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark did at Let's Rock Norwich, taking to the stage to Enola Gay.

Norwich Evening News: OMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWEROMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWER (Image: Lee Blanchflower)

But then this is a band that has never been ones for convention. And from the unmistakable intro strains of that song, an anti-war song named after the plane that dropped the Hiroshima bomb, onwards they proved how they have managed to mix experimental music with irresistible pop hooks.

It helps that they have such an engaging grontman in singer-bassist Andy McCluskey. Here he was never still getting the crowd swaying their arms and displaying his unique dance style — 'it's even scarier in real life than on YouTube'.

Norwich Evening News: OMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWEROMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWER (Image: Lee Blanchflower)

They are marking 40 years since he formed the band on the Wirral in Merseyside with Paul Humphreys and the set reflected the band's entire idiosyncratic career. 'Here's a new one…from 1991,' quipped McCluskey.

From Sailing the Seven Seas to finishing with the first song they ever wrote togther, Electricity, it was a powerful performance that like most of the band's history effortlessly mixed groundbreaking music with catchy hits.

Norwich Evening News: OMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWEROMD take to the stage as the sun sets over Norwich at Let's Rock Norwich 2018 on Earlham Park. Picture: LEE BLANCHFLOWER (Image: Lee Blanchflower)