Nicolle Thompson gets her hero Nik Kershaw talking at The Cluny.

WOW! I do not say that very often about gigs but in this case it fits. In the 1980s I was too young to go and see Nik Kershaw on my own and, let’s face it, there was no way I was going with my parents.

I lived in Cheltenham at the time and it was very unlikely that he was going to play the town hall. It did not exactly attract major acts.

But now I was getting to see him. And I made sure I had a prime spot right in front of the stage.

The Cluny was the perfect venue for an acoustic set and for the feel of the music.

I had wondered how 80s classics such as The Riddle and Wouldn’t It Be Good would translate to an acoustic venue, but the answer was really well.

Nik played a great mixture of old and new and I really could have listened to him all night. I make no apologies for sounding like a star-struck teenager. I really was blown away.

A beautiful rendition of the haunting Have A Nice Life blended perfectly with an inspired acoustic version of Dancing Girls.

The politically-charged Loud, Confident & Wrong harked back to I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me and Save The Whale, paying homage to a time when musicians tried to make a difference.

He had the crowd in the palm of his hands with his singing and his down-to-earth personality and, I certainly thought, highly amusing banter. He moved seamlessly between albums, picking highlights from each stage of his recording career so far.

A generous two-hour set just did not seem long enough but I was also lucky enough to have a chat with Nik before he went on stage.

So why he had come to Newcastle and specifically The Cluny.

“Well, why anything? In the words of Spike Milligan, everybody’s got to be somewhere,” he said.

Now that he is doing solo acoustic gigs, are the smaller venues better suited?

“It’s a totally different relationship with an audience. It’s a closer relationship – scarier.”

As he’s moved from the 80s style of music to solo acoustic stuff, had his attitude to music in general changed?

“No, not really. My relationship with my songs has changed a lot since I started playing acoustic. I feel closer to them in a funny sort of way. It’s all quite visceral and organic.

“I’ve connected more with the songs. When you write them, you write them and record them and there’s loads of people involved and you play them on stage and you’re part of something.

“You’re part of the whole presentation of the songs. But when it’s just you and the song and an audience, then it connects people together really.”

Does he enjoy it more?

“I do, yeah. I still get very nervous. It still scares me, the whole experience.

“In the 1980s it was living up to the hype.

“It’s not your hype a lot of the time. Quite a lot of the time you’re just worried about getting found out. I know I was.”

He expected people to suddenly realise he was just “Nik from Ipswich”.

So how did he feel now about the Nik Kershaw of the 80s? It was like another person, he said, and watching himself on YouTube was like watching somebody else.

At the end of 1989 he was on tour with Elton John.

He had an album out, The Works. Sales were not as good as hoped and he had to decide whether to look for another deal or “stay at home and write songs for other people – take a back seat”.

He was getting bored with the routine and not enjoying it so he took some time “to breathe”.

“It gave me the opportunity to work with other people and learn stuff from other people and when I did eventually start making records again in ’98, they were very different.”

So why had he decided to start performing his own material again?

“I got frustrated with the politics of the whole business and getting songs recorded and getting them how you wanted them – I never did really.

“I never really saw anything through to its conclusion. You were always doing stuff and then letting it go.

“I was starting to get ideas, song ideas, that were just obviously mine. So I started recording them just to get them out of my system really.

“Then eventually I had about nine, 10 songs, then it was 12 songs and I thought, well, what am I going to do with them? So I decided to just get them out there and just do it but at a different kind of level. It was never going to be like it was and I didn’t want it to be.”

So why does he keep him doing what he does?

“Because I’m rubbish at everything else. People say why do Jagger and Richards still get up and do it, what’s the point, they should be taken out and shot or something. But what are they supposed to do? It’s what they do.

“They can’t sit and watch daytime TV.

“Most of the people that were doing it in the 60s, 70s or 80s are doing it to some degree now, still got their hand in doing something because that’s what they do.”

So what did he do when not performing?

“I’m pretty boring. I play really bad golf.

“I’m obsessed with Sudoku. It’s pretty much the same as everybody else does really – watch rubbish television.”

I don’t get the impression the guitar will be packed away just yet. I breathe a sigh of relief.