A few weeks ago, I learned that China Crisis was playing a show at one of my favorite venues, The Boulton Center in Bay Shore. They were around the area last year (or late in 2018), playing at My Father's Place in Roslyn, and Denise had expressed interest in seeing them. We were away that day, though, or we had another commitment, so we didn't go. This time, when I let her know they were coming to Long Island again, she asked me if I'd like to see them.
Now I don't remember this band at all from the eighties. So I looked up their best known songs and went up on YouTube to give them a listen, figuring I'd find one or two familiar ones where I'd go, "Oh! So that was China Crisis." I listened to maybe five songs, but much to my amazement, zip, zilch, nada. I didn't recognize one of them. I liked their sound, however, so I told Denise I was in. I figured I'd just pretend they were a new band I'd never heard of. (I feel a little bad that we haven't been going to as many shows together since I hit live-show overload at that Bastille concert last year and decided to "boycott" Manhattan.)
This last week was pretty laid back. I had a bunch of work to catch up on, since we had the kids upstate last weekend to visit with their siblings and aunt and uncle, but I managed to hack my way through it in a couple of days.
But ss the show drew closer, I got a little dubious about whether it was going to actually take place. When I had first looked at tickets a few weeks ago, not many had been sold. And although it was still listed on the Boulton Center's web page, when I went up on China Crisis's Facebook page, it was nowhere to be found (nor was it listed on Setlist.fm.) I was a little on pins and needles all week waiting to see if the performance would happen, but as time wore on and we didn't hear about any cancellation, I figured we'd just assume the show was still on. And thankfully, it was.
I was a little tired yesterday, since I woke up early to the sounds of noisy yard work. I was confused (and a little pissed) about this -- we do hire contractors to maintain the back yard, but that's during the warm months -- it's the friggin' end of January! And I couldn't figure out how they had flown their lawn mowers over my car, since I usually have to park on the other side of the driveway for them to get to the yard. But today, it turned out to be the neighbors' crew. (@^&*x!)
Anyway, I took a fairly light day, but I was a little draggy before the show from getting up early.
Denise and I left early, since we'd learned (from Denise getting stuck on the way home) that Sunrise Highway was all backed up. (We later found out that some poor 70-year-old guy got killed trying to cross the service road, and that was why the police had the eastbound side closed off.) But by the time we left, the westbound side had opened up, so we were at the Boulton Center with time to spare.
When we walked in, we ran into John and Joni Blenn, and we chatted with them about various things (including the death of Terry Jones, the current status of Leslie West, and the mysterious disappearance of local songstress Kathy Fleischmann. Fleischmann, if you're out there somewhere, check in and say hi. The whole local music community misses you.) We also ran into Tina and Cindy from Denise's WLIR Facebook group (who had scored first row seats. Nice job!)
We bought a couple of waters and a pretzel and went inside, only to discover that Denise had accidentally bought us what I consider the best seats in the house (and the ones I'm going to try to buy from now on.) They were on the right aisle in Row E, which is the first row after a section break, so there's nothing but open space in front of you. (Talk about leg room! I was in heaven.) My seat felt a little tight (which I attribute to too much McDonald's over the last two weeks), but other than that, I was as comfy as could be. (I know that some of you read these write-ups to see how cranky I was feeling at a given show, but I think I'm gonna disappoint you for this one.)
Denise's friend Mary from the WLIR group saw us and said hello on the way in, and we briefly chatted about eighties music and adoption before the flickering lights let us know the show was about to start.
China Crisis came out as a 4-piece, which included original members Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon, plus a young fellow on keyboards and a sax player. (Unfortunately, I didn't write their names down, and they're not listed on either the band's Facebook page or their Wikipedia page.)
Daly and Lundon are a nice pair of Liverpudlian (or thereabouts) working class gents, both from large families, who seem to have made a nice little career for themselves. (I was going to call them a couple of old coots, but Wikipedia lists them both as having been born in 1962, which makes them both five years younger than me. So let's go with "strapping young lads".)
Daly came out looking a little like Mitch McConnell, but in a yellow-checkered glee club jacket, a black T-Shirt and pink tennis sneakers. (Or if you hate McConnell, substitute the guy from the first X-Men movie who gets turned into white goop and swooshes away all over Jean Grey's floor.) Lundon is his shorter, quieter sidekick, who laughs a lot, but proved he can curse pretty good too after he accidentally dropped his guitar following the seventh song.)
They're an affable pair, and Daly entertained at great length between numbers, with colorful stories about their parents' support for them being in a band (or lack thereof), sneaking into a show to see Thin Lizzy, making their first American tour opening for Simple Minds, and working with Steely Dan's Walter Becker. (And if you've ever listened to The Beatles talk, you know that everything is better when told with a Liverpudlian accent.)
Now I had done my usual due diligence, looking up a setlist they had played at a show in Pawling last weekend. (And by the way, "Pawling" is apparently going to be the name of my first future grandchild. My daughter likes to amuse herself on road trips by assigning her future children the names of the various exits on whatever thoroughfare we happen to be traveling on. Thanks to our trip to Florida a few years ago, I'm the proud future grandfather of a boy named "Okeechobee".)
I'd also printed this setlist out to bring to the show, and had familiarized myself with the band's music by making a YouTube playlist based on the Pawling show. But I had also noticed when I was up on setlist.fm that they like to mix it up a lot, and rarely do the same show two nights in a row. So I wasn't shocked when I found that my setlist was already out of whack by the first song.
Anyway, here's what I want to tell you about the show and the band:
1. China Crisis's music is very enjoyable. I'd describe their music as very chill eighties dance pop, most of which would be completely at home in a John Hughes movie. (Denise actually thought they did have a track on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack LP, but I looked it up and that seems not to have been the case.)
2. Their sound mixes simple, understated synthesizer, strummed guitar and tasteful, laid back sax. They accurately described some of their earlier songs as sounding vaguely Asian, thanks to what they call their "plinky plunky piano").
3. Besides Simple Minds, they mentioned having opened for such acts as The Police, David Bowie, Santana and Eurythmics, to name a few. Santana seems a little weird to me, but all of the others make perfect sense musically.
4. They talked about being influenced by people like Bowie, Brian Eno and Stevie Wonder, and also by contemporaries such as Human League and OMD, again, all of which made perfect sense.
5. I also heard musical echoes, in different songs, of artists such as The Cure ("Bigger the Punch I'm Feeling"), Martha and the Muffins ("Tragedy and Mystery"), and even Kenny G (who we all learned in South Park kisses just like Mr. Garrison's father)("Fool").
6. Daly handles the majority of the lead vocals with Lundon and the others providing backing harmonies. But Lundon did take the lead on two songs later in the evening ("Hands on the Wheel" and "Fool").
7. They really focus on slow-to-mid-tempo songs. The only remotely fast song they did all night was "King in a Catholic Style"; and
8. I suspect that this is why I was unfamiliar with them before. Much of their music, especially the earlier stuff, would have been perfect club music for when the DJ wanted to give couples a slow, romantic song to do some close dancing to. Denise was a club kid, and would have heard their stuff when she was out dancing. I had two left feet, and wouldn't have.
9. Some of my favorite songs going in (based on that YouTube playlist) included "Black Man Ray", "African and White" (which has been replaying in my head since the show last night), "Wishful Thinking" (which was their biggest hit in the UK) and "Working With Fire and Steel" (which was their biggest hit in the U.S., but which they surprisingly skipped for last night's show). Denise's favorite is "Arizona Sky". However;
10. I also found during the show that I particularly enjoyed "Here Comes a Raincloud", which they had played in Pawling, and "Autumn in the Neighborhood", which they hadn't. In all, they played a set that was two songs longer than the one they had performed in Pawling. So bite us, you Pawling punks! Ha ha ha ha ha!
In spite of the lack of promotion on the band's website, in the end, the auditorium wound up being about two thirds full, which the band seemed fairly pleased with. The audience was a bit more ... shall we say, interactive? ... than I'd have preferred, probably because Daly did so much talking between songs (at least in the first half of the show, until he realized it was almost 10 0'clock, and they still had a bunch more songs to get to.) And this time it was the ladies making most of the noise. (Oh, those eighties gals. So wild! So unpredictable!)
Anyway, I really didn't hear anything from the band that I didn't like. I enjoyed the show even more than I expected to, and I expected to enjoy it from the start. The full setlist can be found at https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/china-crisis/2020/boulton-center-for-the-performing-arts-bay-shore-ny-4b98affa.html. (I usually like to make wacky names for these links, but then I learned that when Denise copies the reviews to her Facebook group, the links don't work right, so we'll stick to the actual link just this once.)
I'm hoping to give you another concert write-up next week, but there's been a snag in that plan that I'm trying to work out, so we'll have to see how it goes. Be well, my peeps!
