And as I join Five at a London hotel at, rather aptly, 5pm, Abz Love, J Brown, Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson and Sean Conlon are hours away from announcing their comeback which will see them performing together for the first time in 25 years.
Referring to Abz’s decision to announce on social media he had quit the band without telling them in 2014, Scott laughs: “My opening gambit to Abz when I picked up the phone was, ‘It’s been a long time, that tweet was weird mate.’.
Scott adds: “J said he’d come over and keep his motorbike helmet on but I said, ‘Mate, it’s too much’.”.
“Around five weeks later Abz messaged and said: ‘I really need to speak with you.’ It was like I had put a prayer out to the world and he answered it.”.
“I’ve wanted to go and hang out with Scott and Sean but we didn’t want anyone to know we were all back in touch,” J tells me.
