LONDON -- As Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia constructed a wall of sound Tuesday night here, their stage heated up with a raw energy that itself seemed to create a friction of bodies and sound.

If you studied the situation closely, an invisible smoke seemed almost to billow across the room, enveloping the more than 600 gathered.

That might explain the fire alarm.

The Kings College Student Union headquarters was almost too hot Tuesday night for some veteran rockers to handle even. At the first live Curve gig in a dog's age, members of bands as disparate as Placebo (Brian Molko), Echobelly (former Curve guitarist Debbie Smith), Bananarama and even Led Zeppelin (the mighty Robert Plant) turned up to witness the return to the stage of the gothic-industrial duo of Halliday and Garcia at a special one-off gig.

In the course of a memorable night of music and colorful lighting that at times turned the Student Union into a disco, the crowd got more than they had bargained for.

Luckily, the only heat circulating through the room that night came from the stage, however, as a false fire alarm interrupted the hour-long concert for 45 minutes. Evacuating fans was no easy task considering the gig took place on the fourth floor of the college building located in the heart of London's West End. Still, the crowd took the alarm in good humor. It was even suggested that someone who couldn't get into the gig set the alarm off so they could waltz in with the crowd after receiving the all clear.

As firefighters scoped the scene to make sure there really wasn't a fire, the crowd waited patiently at a safe distance, not far from the Thames River. And while the disturbance only seemed to lighten up the audience, it apparently threw what had been a red hot Curve for a loop, extinguishing some of their enthusiasm on stage.

Still Halliday and Garcia, who formed Curve in 1991, returned to form displaying the trademark guitars-in-a-wind tunnel effects that had established their musical voice years ago. Halliday took the stage, like a queen bee ruling over her drones. As she sang she stalked the crowd and lunged like a cat to emphasize her phrasing. Dressed in a black leather jacket with a T-shirt saying "Bitch," dyed black hair piled high and heavy eye makeup, she looked like a cross between Debbie Harry (Blondie) and Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees). She even sounded like a strange mixture of Liz Fraser and Sioux, while managing still to project a style all her own.

Bolstered by supporting roles from muscular guitarist Rob Holliday and tight time keeping from Springy, Curve started their set with the slow-building "Sweetback." The tune left the crowd transfixed, mesmerized by music and dazzled by light, lulled into an almost catatonic state. The men screamed for Halliday, while the girls mimicked her.

It had been years since the band basked in the adoration of fans, having taken time off after the release of its 1993 LP Cuckoo to recuperate from tour burnout. Yet even while they've been gone Curve's mesmerizing mix of goth and industrial sounds has continued to influence numerous bands. The duo was among the first to earn a reputation as "shoegazers," due to their penchant for staring down at their effects pedals during performances.

Shoegazing and all, the band was back this time with a mixture of old and new tunes. Surprisingly, their best-sounding song was the latest single, "Chinese Burn," from their new album, Come Clean, due out in January. The song, accompanied by a blaze of criss-crossing white light, opened the second set.

The other new songs included "Something Familiar" and "Coming Up Roses," which helped to prove to many in the crowd that Curve is still a viable musical force. Fans reacted as if they were hearing an old favorite.

But while "Chinese Burn" gave the audience a shot of sonic adrenaline following the fire alarm, the show never fully recovered. Two more songs, the title track to the new album and the feedback-soaked encore of "Dirty High," featuring Halliday on guitar, followed.

Then the lights flashed on, washing out the blue, purple, pink and orange colors which had transformed this small, cramped space into a theater. The wall of sound had been torn down and the invisible smoke dissipated.

But Curve had made a triumphant return. Fire alarm and all.

[Fri., Nov. 21, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]