IT’S been more than 20 years in the making so is probably the most anticipated gig of the year.

When Penny Arcade step on to the Bull’s Soundhouse stage this weekend a whole generation of Colchester gig-goers will be there with them reliving their youth and a time when Colchester’s bands were standing toe to toe with the big boys.

The band evolved out of another successful local music outfit from the late Eighties, Solid State, who performing locally and all over the country in 1991/2.

In 1996, re-named Imperial, the band had their biggest hit with All Around Her Pretty Head, which reached number 29 in the Indie charts.

Frontman Nic Jarvis recalls one of those early gigs supporting a little known band called Radiohead.

He says: “We were in Oxford and they had just released Creep and been signed by EMI.

“I remember Thom Yorke coming into the dressing room after our set and saying ‘how are we supposed to follow that’. “I think Keiran still has their bass player’s strap.”

That’s Penny Arcade’s bassist Keiran Chatten, who along with Kelly Pardoe (drums) and Iain Coulson (guitars) made-up the band then, and now!

Kelly says: “That was at a time when there was some pretty big indie bands out there so it was a great achievement.”

And yet soon after the band called it a day.

“Well for me,” Kelly continues, “I had been in bands for 15 years and I had just had my fill of it.”

Nick adds: “We were all getting older and our priorities were changing. We had record companies promising they would be at our gigs and then not turn up.

“I think we just got fed up with it all.”

All went their separate ways until last year when they met up at a friend’s wedding but it wasn’t until Iain got ill and was laid up in a hospital bed that the idea to re-form the band came about.

“I was pretty unwell,” he says, “and Keiran and Kelly came in to see me. “A friend of mine had this video of us playing back in the day and we all sat and watched it.”

Kelly adds: “We were sat there thinking ‘do you know what, we weren’t that bad a band’ and so that’s where it all started.”

That’s when it all went mad.

“We just wanted to see what would happen,” Keiran explains, “but when we put something up on Facebook it just went crazy for a few weeks.”

And yet it most definitely will at the venue in Crouch Street, Colchester, this Sunday.

With support from the Mannequins, doors open at 8pm and entry is £1 after 7pm and £1.50 after 9.30pm.