Review of A Flock of Seagulls' "Ascension"

I posted this review a little while ago on the Sputnik Music website. And for Long Island fans who aren't aware, Mike Score's version of A Flock of Seagulls will be headlining on Long Island next Saturday, August 4, at the Tilles Center, joined by five other '80s band.

Review Summary: A Flock of Seagull's soaring new wave classics get a fresh orchestral makeover.

Now that many of the rock heroes of the sixties and seventies are either dying off or becoming too old to effectively play their instruments anymore, a strange new trend seems to be developing -- orchestral albums made by bands of the eighties-new-wave genre. While this seems less intuitive than, say, pairing an orchestra with seventies progressive rock (a genre that often featured a certain amount of classical musical influence anyway), it's actually working out OK. Last year, former Ultravox frontman released his Orchestrated album, which rose higher in the British charts than anything he's released since 1988; and earlier this year, Erasure released World Beyond, an orchestral version of their 2017 World Be Gone LP, which some listeners preferred to the original. Now comes Ascension, an orchestral rock album by the British 80's synth-pop band A Flock of Seagulls. And once again, the orchestral/new-wave blend comes off way better than you'd have any right to expect.

Part of the reason for this is that A Flock of Seagulls was always a more sophisticated band than the casual '80s dancehall kid might have been aware of. Yes, their look at the time was kind of silly, and made some people not take them seriously. But one listen to their 1982 eponymous LP, or there 1983 follow-up Listen is enough to make you realize that this is more than just some light little pop-singles band. Their 1984 concept album The Story of a Young Heart, while less commercially successful than the other two, is no slouch either.

Ascension reunites the classic Flock lineup of those first three albums (Mike Score on lead vocals, keyboards and guitar, his brother Ali Score on drums, Paul Reynolds on lead guitar, and Frank Maudsley on bass), and pairs them with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The bad news is that the four Flock members were never in the same studio at the same time for the recording of this LP. (They're also not back together for a tour. The Flock that plays out live these days features Mike Score and a bunch of other guys). The good news is that they still sound pretty terrific.

Ascension features eleven of the band's greatest hits, plus one new song, all done up in a new orchestral arrangement. Five of the songs were originally recorded on their first LP, and four are from Listen. Only "The More You Live, the More You Love" was taken from The Story of a Young Heart, but that turns out to be one of the best tracks on the new LP. All of the Flock's best-known songs are here, including "Space Age Love Song", "I Ran", "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" and "Telecommunication".

Flock always created luxuriant musical soundscapes, powered in no small part by the textures of Reynolds' guitar work. Their songs have also always had a science fiction/outer space quality to them. Both of these characteristics of their music are well served here by the addition of the orchestra. As for the vocals, upon first listen to this LP, Mike Score's voice sounded different than I remembered it. As the album wore on, though, it became more and more familiar.

My complaints about Ascension are fairly minor ones. The first is the instrumental title track. As the one "new" song on the LP, I was hoping for great things (especially since they named the album after it). Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. It starts out in fine symphonic fashion, with music that is both dramatic and pretty. However, the whole track only lasts for a minute and twelve seconds; and halfway through it, familiar chords pop up, and it morphs into what is obviously nothing more than a grand intro for "Wishing". I love "Wishing" as much as anyone, but for being the only new number here, and the title track to boot, it felt like a bit of a ripoff. My second criticism is of the song "Man Made", the last track on the album. The arrangement is lovely, exceptthat there's this really annoying synthetic tinkling noise that goes on in the background for the entire length of the song. It's distracting, and serves to spoil an otherwise solid track.

Still, these are minor critiques. Overall, I found the music on Ascension to be lush and exciting. The addition of the orchestra helps to bring a fresh sound to this group of songs that have been around for about thirty-five years now. The album is strong enough to make me cautiously interested in hearing other symphonic new wave experiments. As for Flock of Seagulls, I'd love to see these four men get back together in earnest to create some new music. Ascension reminded me of just how excellent much of their old music was.


Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Wizard's Consort and Blackmore's Night

Great friggin' concert. Dilly dilly! (I've always wanted to say that.)

It's been about 10 years since the last time I saw Blackmore's Night live, and it was way too long. The thing is, they don't play formally announced shows here on Long Island all that often. Although they live somewhere on the Island (hell, Michele Monte used to be their house sitter when they were on the road), and they do have a following here, for some reason, they're way  more popular in Europe, especially in Germany. So they spend most of their summers playing German castle tours. (Wouldn't you?)

I think the last time I saw them was at the Westbury Music Fair, while John Blenn was still working there. As I recall, on that occasion, Ritchie got pissed at the venue because they had a hard ending time, and he still felt like playing. (For being a venue I love, there often seems to be a lot of issues between that venue and the artists. There was the dust-up with Blackmore, the time The Church stormed off the stage because of the bad sound, and the recent sound issues for the first part of Retro Futura. Then again, my guess is that Mr. Blackmore can also be difficult when he wants to be, so I guess it was a wash). I also saw them at least once at The Patchogue Theater.

But some of the most enjoyable Blackmore's Night shows have the unscheduled ones. Like a lot of couples, Ritchie and Candice like to go out to dinner. But unlike a lot of couples, they always seem to have a few special places where they go, eat some food, Ritchie drinks some adult beverages, and then they play an off-the-cuff show. They used to be famous for doing this at the old Normandy Inn in the Oakdale/Bohemia area, and at the Moonstruck Cafe in Nesconset, both of which are no longer around. (I saw them play a set in between sets of a Crystal Rose show at the Moonstruck, on a rainy night, as one of about eight or ten people in the audience).

I was really bummed that I didn't get to see them last time they played the Patchogue Theater in October of 2016, so I made up my mind to see them for this show. I was flying solo tonight -- it was my turn to get out of the house. (Denise and our friend Rich went into the city last night for a Depheche Mode/'80s cruise.)

The show had a scheduled 7PM start, and for once, even with the traffic coming back from the Hamptons, I timed it just right. I was lucky enough to find a spot in one of the nearby parking lots tonight, so I didn't have to climb all the way down the hill and back up again to park on the street -- only down and up half of the hill.

I was in my seat at about 10 minutes to showtime, enjoying the Renaissance's Turn of the Cards album on the house speakers until the opening band came out. Wizard's Consort are a strange band. They're a 3-piece that no one seems to know a lot about. I think they're friends of the Blackmores, but they don't seem to have any albums out, or a web page, or any of that stuff. In fact, just about the only mention of them I could find on the web was an article, reviewing a Blackmore's Night show for which they opened, which commented on the fact that they seem to have no Internet presence whatsoever. It's like they're totally off the grid.

They came out precisely at 7PM, all dressed in black. Their garb was peculiar. One player looked more like a pilgrim than a man from Resaissance England. (I wish I could have gotten a better look at them. But for some reason, the video screens didn't show either of the bands tonight.) They featured a cellist, a player playing some kind of electric-acoustic stringed instrument (an electric lute?), and a man who played the keyboards with his hands and percussion with his feet. They did an all-instrumental set that ran about 40 minutes long. Their music was strange -- it was definitely renaissance-influenced, but dark -- more castle dungeon than village square. Most of what they played was probably traditional music. But every so often, they'd play a little bit, or all, of something familiar, in their own medieval style. At one point, the crowd stirred as they drifted into Zeppelin's "Kashmir". A few minutes later, they were playing "Bouree" (made famous in our times by Jethro Tull, but of course, they lifted it from Bach). A little while after that, they played "Greensleeves/What Child Is This?". And towards the end of their set, they played a version of "Paint It Black" that started as a dirge, then rocked out.

They were pretty well received by the crowd. There were a couple of young women in front of me who chatted through their set, but I think this was OK. I think the Blackmores sent them out there kind of like the background entertainment at the king's banquet, to provide some music as people entered, drank, and whatever, until it was time for the night's main entertainment to begin. Overall, though, they got a lot of applause, and the crowd was more attentive than they often are for an opening band.

At just about 8:15PM, Blackmore's Night hit the stage, to "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Mis. The house was mostly full. The floor area was filled with folding chairs for tonight's show. I was sitting upstairs in the back, in the third row on the far right, in what was listed as an obstructed view seat. I didn't so much mind, because I've seen the band before -- I know what they look like. But it was a moot point anyway, because although they played as a 7-piece band, for some reason, they didn't have a musician on the blocked side of the stage -- most of the band huddled together on the other side. (I had almost the same seat for King Crimson last year, just a few rows further back. But unfortunately, on that night, the one musician the obstruction blocked was Robert Fripp! Grr!).

They started the night with "Dancer and the Moon", and I noticed immediately that Candice's vocals were a little drowned out in the mix. It also sounded like she wasn't in her best voice -- not bad, but not as great as I remembered. I needn't have worried, though. By the second song, the sound man had his stuff together, and Candice's voice warmed up enough to click into gear. And man, she was deadly for the rest of the night. I've often written that I believe Candice Night has one of the most beautiful voices in rock today. But I've always been especially amazed at how powerful her voice is, and how accurate she is live. (As a songer herself, Denise often hears the tiny vocal flaws that someone else might miss. But even she has always been very impressed by Candice.) The band played for two-and-a-half hours, and performed more than twenty songs without a break, and she never missed a beat. It was a show to remember.

In between songs, the Blackmores did their usual husband/wife comedy act, playfully bickering with one another, to the crowd's amusement. (Candice: "Prior to forming Blackmore's Night, Ritchie had a reputation for being a cranky rock star. But it wasn't his fault. He was pre-minstrel!"; Ritchie: If a man speaks in the woods, and there isn't a woman there to hear it, is he still wrong?"). They came out with some sort of setlist in mind, but Ritchie drove Candice crazy by constantly letting her introduce a song, then changing the setlist on the fly. But it was all good. The band was in a great mindset, relaxed, smoking hot, and obviously happy to be playing in front of a home crowd.

In celebration of their 21st year as a band, they played at least a song or two from each of their studio albums (except for their Christmas album). Some of my favorite moments were a ravishingly beautiful version of "Ghost of a Rose", a highly energetic rendition of "Fires at Midnight", and a slow acoustic cover of the first song I ever heard of theirs, Renaissance's "Ocean Gypsy". (At one point while the rest of the band was offstage, the keyboard player and the drummer also combined for an instrumental version of Renaissance's "Running Hard", after which the keyboard player also left the stage while the drummer did an extended drum solo.) At the request of the Blackmores' six-year-old son, screaming from the right side gallery, they also played an abbreviated acoustic version of one of the tracks that first put Ritchie Blackmore on the map as a rock legend -- Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". And a couple of times, both their son and their daughter (who looks to be about eight or nine years old) joined them on the stage to dance with Candice during some of the livelier numbers. This was definitely one of my favorite concerts of the year so far.

I was a little surprised that they didn't play two of their usual staples, "Renaissance Faire" and "Past Times With Good Company". But I've heard them play both of those songs live before, and I really couldn't complain -- they played such a great selection tonight, and I was so happy to hear them play "Ghost of a Rose" and "Ocean Gypsy", that it was all good.

It's been a pretty good last ten days for live music for me. I got to hear three of my Top 25 Artists of All Time. First there was Belinda Carisle (The Go-Go's) at Retro Futura; then Yes; and now Blackmore's Night. Life is good!

For last night's setlist, go to setlist.fm.

Review of The Cars' "Shake It Up"

I posted this review this afternoon on the Sputnik Music website:

Review Summary: A basic Cars LP, from when The Cars where still The Cars.

Here's the truth about The Cars' first five albums -- there's not all that much difference between them. I don't mean this in a derogatory way. I'm a fan of the band. Always have been, always will be. But in terms of both style and quality, they're all close to being equal. The general consensus is probably that the first, the second and the fifth (The Cars -- 1978, Candy-O -- 1979, and Heartbeat City -- 1984) are maybe a half-a-cut better than the third and fourth (Panorama -- 1980 and Shake It Up -- 1981), due to having a few more top-flight songs on them. But it's close. Chances are, if you like one, you'd like them all, and vice versa. Panorama vs. Shake It Up is almost a coin toss. I slightly prefer the first, but we're talking very slightly. As far as sales went, Shake It Up did a little better than Panorama, going double-platinum to the latter's single-platinum, but neither of them sold as well as the other three LPs. Panorama made it slightly higher in the Billboard charts, reaching a high of #5, compared to Shake It Up's #9. However, as you can see, we're talking about very small differences here.

So what you're dealing with in Shake It Up, then, is nine more songs done in the classic Cars manner -- new-wave music done American style. There's a little more chunky guitar than you'll find in the British dance-pop bands of the same era, but still plenty of synthesizer to go around. The lyrics continue to be mostly about relationships with hot and fascinating women, but as usual for this band, not in the kind of smarmy way you'll find in the lyrics of most of the '80s guitar-dominated bands -- they're not so much "hot for teacher" as they are "victims of love". And, as on most Cars albums, Ric Ocasek sings about two thirds of the lead vocals, with Benjamin Orr carrying the other third.

So what distinguishes Shake It Up from the other four albums" Well, there is the title track, which was the band's most successful single in the U.S. up until that point, coming in at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It's an upbeat, catchy number, with some good synth and guitar work, that I imagine must have been pretty popular in eighties dance clubs everywhere. There's also "Since You're Gone", the album's opening number, which likewise made the singles charts, albeit in a significantly lower position. And I'm kind of partial to "I'm Not the One," a slower, Orr-sung track with some tinkly, merry-go-round synthesizer. The album's Wikipedia entry claims that Shake It Up is "much more pop-oriented" than was Panorama, but that might be a little overstated. Overall, it's a simply a basic Cars LP, from when The Cars were still The Cars.

This band had a nice little run for themselves from 1978 until 1984, churning out five solid albums in a row that have stood the test of time. They weren't the dominant band of their time period, but they were strong enough that their music is still fondly remembered today. Shake It Up didn't really stand out from their other LPs of this era, but it certainly carried its weight. If you like The Cars at all, it's worth a listen.


Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yes at 50 Tour

I was feeling kind of bummed for the last  few days that I didn't fully enjoy myself at the Erasure show (although I've kind of decided that it's not fully my fault. Some of it was my sour mindset for the night. But some of it was that while Erasure does have some good songs, too many of them sound alike, and are really mostly of interest to dance too. I wish they'd thrown in their ABBA cover, "Take a Chance on Me", to change it up a little. But I digress).

In any event, while I  was at the Retro Futura show in Westbury on Friday night, I noticed that Yes was appearing there this week. I checked online, and saw that there seemed to be an ample number of tickets left for me to pick one up at the show on Wednesday night, if I chose to do so.

Now I've seen Yes three times in the past -- four if I count Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe -- and I do. I saw them at Madison Square Garden for the Drama tour, at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium for the 90125 tour, and back at Madison Square Garden again for the Union tour. And I saw ABWH at the Nassau Coliseum for the tour for their eponymous album, with Tony Levin playing bass. I didn't originally plan to see Yes this tour, because I'm at a point in my life where I've been trying to concentrate on my bucket-list bands -- bands I've never seen before but want to. But as I thought about it more, I realized that Yes is one of my favorite bands. And it's the same situation as with Howard Jones and Thomas Dolby. I've never seen Thomas Dolby, but I've seen Howard Jones four times. I wish I could trade one of those Howard Jones shows and see Thomas Dolby once, but that's how life is. So if you never get to see Thomas Dolby, but you get to see Howard Jones four times, then make the most of it and enjoy Howard Jones. I love Yes and Pink Floyd about equally, and I never got to see Pink Floyd. But if I never got to see Pink Floyd, but I got to see Yes  four (five) times -- then I should make the most of it, and just enjoy the hell out of Yes.

If you haven't kept up with it, Yes is having weird times these days. Just like in the ABWH days, there are two competing versions of Yes out there right now. There's the version that Chris Squire was running until his death in 2015. That band currently consists of Steve Howe on guitar; Alan White on drums, Geoff Downes (the former member The Buggles who joined Yes for the Drama album) on keyboards; Billy Sherwood (Chris Squire's self-chosen successor) on bass; and Jon Davison (the former lead singer of Glass Hammer) on vocals. Their situation has been further complicated by the fact that Alan White had back surgery last year, and caught a bacterial infection in his joints last November, leaving him unable to play for more than a few songs a night. So Jay Schellen (who?) is playing drums for most of the night for every show. This is the band who played in Westbury last night.

The other version of Yes includes vocalist Jon Anderson, guitarist Trevor Rabin, and keyboard player Rick Wakeman. They originally billed themselves as Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman (ARW). But when Squire passed away, supposedly with his widow's blessing, they changed their name to "Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman". There is bad blood between these two units, but after the Chris Squire version of Yes vs. ABWH court case (which eventually resulted in a unification of those two Yes factions), they've all figured out that if they go back to court, the only ones it will benefit will be the lawyers. So they've struck an uneasy truce. And right now, they're both out on the road, playing separate Yes 50th Anniversary tours.

At this point, I'd like to officially announce that this fall, a third version of Yes, featuring myself, Denise, our two kids, and Chris Squire's corpse will be be making our premier tour. We'll be billing ourselves as "Yes Long Island - A Weekend at Chris's". (What, too soon?). I'll be playing kazoo. My first lesson is next Thursday. You should be aware though, that we'll have to transpose all of the songs downwards -- Denise's voice is much lower than Jon Anderson's.

In any event, the Howe/Yes tour has been a bit of an extravaganza, all leading up to a big Yes-Fest in Philadelphia this coming Saturday, which will include both afternoon and evening performances, will feature guest performances by former Yes keyboardists Tony Kaye and Patrick Moraz, and will also include an art exhibit by the man responsible for most of Yes' cover art over the years, Roger Dean. The tour itself has featured guest performances from time to time from Moraz, Kaye and Trevor Horn. I was hoping for a surpise appearance by Moraz (who played with the band on their Relayer album), but after chcecking their recent setlists on setlist.fm, I realized (correctly) that Moraz wasn't likely to turn up, but that Kaye was.

So that was the story. I had a quiet day yesterday, and left the house a little after six to take myself back to the NYCB Theater in Westbury. The crowd there was much larger than it had been for the Retro Futura show, but I was still able to buy a ticket at the box office.

I was told that Roger Dean was in the lobby -- I believe it was true, because I did see a big area in the middle where they seemed to be selling his art -- but it was mobbed there, so I just headed right into the arena.

I soon found myself in a comfy seat with an aisle on one side and an empty seat at the other. Yes being Yes, the tiny rotating stage was packed with equipment (although if Wakeman had been there, it would have been worse -- he could have taken up the whole stage by himself, and still had more equipment in the aisles).

The band opened right up with their 1972 classic, "Close to the Edge". The crowd went nuts. As the band rocked out, hips were breaking right and left. The nursing homes of Long Island were empty last night.

Now I'm going to tell you some of the negatives. Bear in mind as I do that I still had a really good time at the show, and I'm not at all sorry I bought a ticket. But the thing is, Yes has created some beautiful and complex pieces of music over the years. And these compositions were created for a band that featured virtuoso's at every position. Wakeman (and later Moraz), Squire, Bruford and Howe were all among the top players at their instruments, and Anderson was in the upper echelons of rock vocalists. Even White, when he took over for Bruford, was a pretty damned accomplished drummer. However, this is no longer true of this rendition of Yes. Davison doesn't have the full richness of voice that Anderson has (had? I haven't see him in years), although his voice is strong, and sounds about as close to Anderson's as you can get. Sherwood is Squire's protege, and plays (and looks) very much like him, but doesn't have all of Squire's chops. Schellen seemed to me to be an average drummer at best. Howe is Howe, but the man is 71 years old -- he's lost a half-step, and there are other things going on for him as well (which I'll get into later). And then there's Downes.

I want to say from the outset that I consider Geoff Downes to be a totally legitimate member of Yes, and I like much of his work. I have always loved the Drama album, I enjoy the Fly From Here album, and I'm a big fan of his work with The Buggles. But The Buggles isn't Yes. And Downes isn't Wakeman. He's a much lighter player, and when he tries to play classic Wakeman material, it doesn't always come off well. The problem is that where Rick Wakeman will hit you flush in the face with some full-on Phantom of the Opera shit, Downes' instinct is too often to go cutesy. He's playing the same notes, but kind of sliding through them without hitting them full on. He gets away with it sometimes. But sometimes you're just waiting for that blast of power synthesizer, and you get Wakeman-lite instead. It can't help but be a disappointment.

Then there's Howe. Howe is the reason I accept this band as the most legitimate version of Yes still out there. I'm not a Trevor Rabin fan. Never have been, never will be. For me, if it ain't Howe, it ain't really Yes. But as I said earlier, Howe is now 71 years old. And I can tell you for a fact, with the Yes vs. Yes grudge match currently going on, he's feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. There's only so much Yes-cred to go around, and especially with White running at about 35-40%, it's all on Howe to keep the people believing that this unit is some form of real Yes. So instead of having the frontman announce the songs, introduce the band, etc., Howe is doing it all himself. He's also taking the majority of the solos and musical flourishes. And where in the old days, Wakeman would do a solo number, and Anderson would do a solo number, the only solo last night was Howe's "Mood for a Day".

As it was, Howe started the night in a kind of a cranky mood. In this small, intimate arena, when one of the faithful feels the pressing need to scream important stuff, like "We Loooove You, Steve!" while Howe is trying to talk, or play on a quiet acoustic number, there's no getting away from it. These kinds of things were annoying Howe last night, and although he admonished the crowd a couple of times, some of the dimmer bulbs never got the hint. (There was also one point during one of the songs where it sounded like a physical fight was about to break out in the crowd. Which given the median age of this audience was just ridiculous.) Now I can tell you that I'm ten years younger than Howe. And when one of my kids gets me worked up, I forget how to even work my cell phone. So it was obvious to me by both his body language and the couple of little flubs that he made that all of this was distracting to the man. And the pressure of being the main guy didn't help. It's easy being Captain America when you can rely on Thor and Iron Man and the Hulk to go smash shit. But when you suddenly find yourself leaning on Hawkeye and The Falcon, it's a whole different story. (What's the line from Big Bang Theory? What are two words no one's ever said? "Help, Hawkeye!").

Now let's discuss the more positive aspects of the night. The choice of the setlist was solid. While the band did play some of the classic numbers, like "Close to the Edge" and "Heart of the Sunrise", they also focused on a lot of the songs that didn't always make it into the live show in the band's classic days. This allowed the audience to sit back and enjoy something different without the inevitable comparisons to Yes's glory days. (And in fact, seeing the probable setlist ahead of time was one of the things that made up my mind to buy a ticket). Some of the songs I'm talking about included a pair of tracks from their excellent Going for the One album, "Parallels" and "Awaken", as well as "Fly From Here, Part I: We Can Fly" from Fly From Here and "Sweet Dreams" from Time and a Word.

The band's second set (they played two full sets with no encores last night, a total of 15 songs) started off a little shaky -- "Perpetual Change" was probably their worst number of the night. It was draggy in the beginning, then turned into total cacophony in the middle. But things got better with the next number, "Does It Really Happen?" from Drama, and even better with the number after that, an exquisitely beautiful version of "Soon" from their Relayer album.

At this point, Alan White joined the band. (He had to work for it, as the arena's famous rotating stage had rotated the drums away from him. I was a little worried he was going to kill himself trying to get to his kit.). Schellen stayed on the stage, but moved to hand percussion and occasionally a couple of electric drums on the side, as the band performed a pretty good version of "Awaken". At other shows on the tour, the band usually ended their regular set after this song, and did the rest of the show as an encore. But for some reason (probably the logistics of getting everyone, including poor White, over all of that equipment and up the ramp, then back down again), on this night, they decided to just continue on with the set, as Howe introduced special guest, Tony Kaye.

Now I'm going to admit something -- I've never been a big Tony Kaye fan. I like all of the majesty Wakeman added to the band, and never blamed them for sacking Kaye, who was essentially a meat and potatoes (or piano and organ) keyboard player. But I have to tell you that Kaye's addition last night really took the band to another level. Now playing as a 7-piece, with Schellen's hand percussion and two keyboardists, the band roared into "Yours Is No Disgrace", and for the first time all night, Howe looked like he had really relaxed and started enjoying himself. And next, they took it up another notch, performing the best and most lively version of "Roundabout" I think I ever saw the band do. They concluded the evening on a high note, with a fine rendition of "Starship Trooper", which ended the night with tumultuous applause and a full-house standing ovation.

So that was the evening. There were ups and downs, but the crowd mostly seemed to only have noticed the ups. As for me, I felt that the night was well worth the price of the ticket. I hope these guys have a great weekend in Philadelphia. They've been a world-class band for fifty years now. Maybe if the other version of Yes works their way back to Long Island, I'll go catch them for comparison. (I'm not a Rabin fan, but I still love Anderson and Wakeman). And while I may have been kind of critical of Geoff Downes in this blog entry, if he and Trevor Horn ever do a Buggles reunion, I promise, I'm there.

I've got another show coming up in a few days, and you know I'll tell you all about it. (And after the show, I bumped into Rich Branciforte and exchanged pleasantries. So maybe sometime soon, I'll throw in a review in Good Times to go with my write-ups here and on the Sputnik Music website.)
Until then, stay cool, my friends.

Erasure

It was scheduled to be one of those weekends of music for us -- Retro Futura on Friday night, and Erasure on Saturday. Unfortunately, this is going to be another one of those write-ups that are more about me and the things going on that prevented me from really being fully present at this concert than about the concert itself.

We got our tickets to the Erasure show earlier in the year. Denise and I had both noticed that Erasure was booked to play the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on a Sunday night over the summer. Now Denise has always loved Erasure. I can take them or leave them. I like a few of their songs, and I seem to be one of the few who liked their 2017 World Be Gone album. (Comparing it to other albums released by '80s bands in 2017, I didn't like it as much as I liked the OMD album, but I liked it better than the Depeche Mode album, and maybe even better than the Blondie album). But I think a lot of their music was popular because it's very danceable, and as I explained in yesterday's post, I've never been a dancer or a dance club kid. Also I find that traveling into the city for a show is such a hassle these days -- I've gotten so used to Suffolk County's open spaces that going into Manhattan always feels like putting on a straitjacket. And don't even get me started on the traffic and the logistics of getting around there and parking. So when I heard the concert was in Manhattan, and on a Sunday night, I brushed it off.

But then, as that show sold out, they added a Saturday night show. (They would go on to add a Friday night show as well). At first, I was still of a mindset to ignore it, due to the Manhattan thing. But then I started to think about it. I knew that Denise really wanted to go. Now this was in the beginning of 2018, and things were starting to open up for us. Our children are older, and we started to experiment with leaving them for an overnight on their own, here and there. And I started realizing that as our kids were growing, Denise and I have spent the last 8 years so busy being parents that I didn't feel we were as connected as we used to be. Also, I was losing weight and feeling better physically -- more able to get around with wearing myself out. The band had an interesting opening act called Reed and Caroline, protegees of Vince Clarke of Erasure, which also made the show more attractive to me. So knowing that Denise would really enjoy it, I said, "Why not?" and told her to go ahead and get the tickets.

Unfortunately, shortly after that, things took a backwards turn in our life. As happens with parenting, there are steps forward and steps back, and as it turned out, the kids weren't as ready to be left unsupervised as we had originally thought. By the time we had figured this out, we already had tickets for Retro Futura and Erasure on back-to-back nights for this past weekend. I didn't think it was doable, and had already decided I'd go with her to the Westbury show, and we'd ask one of our friends to accompany her into the city for Erasure.

Then things changed again in a way that seemed to make things easier for seeing both shows. My son decided to go upstate for three weeks and work with his uncle. We dropped him off last weekend, and went back to our original plan. But it didn't work out the way we hoped. Just about as soon as we got him up there, he decided he wanted to come back home. We kept trying to get him to hang in there, thinking it would be good for him -- he'd make some money, learn more about building things, and get some time with his relatives. Things went back and forth, with a final decision being delayed until Saturday.

Friday night, we went to Retro Futura, as I already detailed, and had a pretty good time. By the time we got home, it was close to 1AM. Unfortunately, I had to stay up for a few more hours working on some notes for work, so when I got up for my Saturday morning Weight Watcher's meeting, I was already working short-sleeped. As I suspected, my son still wanted to come home. He actually wanted to take the train, which would have been good, as it would have spared us a drive up to Rome. However, after more than an hour online and on the phone with Amtrak (Their website is a mess! Try it sometime.) it became obvious that this wasn't going to work -- I had forgotten that Penn Station is in disarray all summer because they're refurbishing the damned thing. All of the Amtrak trains are being rerouted to Grand Central, and the LIRR service (which I'd need to go into the city and pick him up) was in shambles as well. It didn't help my mood that in the middle of figuring all of this out, I had to stop to mediate because while I was working trying to help him get home, he was on the phone fighting with his sister. Finally, it became apparent that the best of several bad choices was to just bite the bullet, go to the show, and then take off from there and drive all night to Rome.

After a (very) brief nap, we wound up leaving the house late, as Denise made several calls trying to book us a room up there so we could grab some sleep before we drove home. Then we got hit with a few more problems. Before we'd gotten too far, incredibly, my son was on the car phone again driving us crazy about another fight he was having with his sister. And as I tried to get him off of the phone, we hit a complete stop in the traffic on the LIE. It was now a guarantee that we were going to be late for the show.

Denise rolls with things much better than I do. By this time, I was mentally and emotionally done. I was hot, I was overtired, I was emotionally fried (I had been dealing with this situation with my son all week), and I was totally bummed that we were going to miss Reed and Caroline. And I wasn't even sure we were likely to make it there in time for the start of Erasure's set. (I also knew from looking up their setlist on setlist.fm that they were probably going to open with my favorite Erasure song, "Oh L'Amour"). We passed an Olive Garden restaurant, and I can tell you that if I didn't know Denise really wanted to go to the show, I'd have liked to just stop, unwind during a leisurely dinner, skip the show entirely, and just drive upstate after dinner.

Once we got past the accident on the Long Island Parking Lot (as the LIE is not-so-affectionately known), we actually made reasonable time into and across the city. Denise had prepaid for parking at a nearby lot, which we found with no problem. We made it to the Beacon at about 8:40PM, missing Reed and Caroline entirely, but with enough time to settle into our seats before Erasure started. We were seated in the balcony, and the Beacon being a pretty old theater, there aren't elevators (that I know of, anyway). So we got out our ropes and grappling hooks, and Denise, our pet mountain goat and I scaled the two flights of stairs up to our seats with a minmum of yodeling. By this time, I was just glad to relax for a few hours before our all-night drive.

As predicted, Erasure opened up with "Oh L'Amour", which was good. As soon as they played the last note of the song, I went back inside to get us some waters (we were parched by the summer heat, the long drive, and the hike up to the balcony). Then I settled in as the music just washed over me.

In all honesty, I didn't really enjoy the show at all, but it had nothing to do with Erasure. (I'm so freaking dyslexic -- I keep typing them as "Earsure"!). The house was totally rocking, people were up and dancing, and I guarantee you, I was pretty much the only person in the theater that didn't have a good time. But by that time, I just wanted to flash forward to being done with the all-night drive and settle into bed at our motel in Herkimer.

Here are some observations I can give you about the concert:

1. The band (Andy Bell and Vince Clarke) had two backup singers of questionable gender. (I actually spent a good part of the night musing about this question. I asked Denise, but she wasn't sure who was what either.) There was a skinny singer dressed in a man's suit, who I'm pretty sure was actually a woman. (I detected breasts). Then there was a fleshier person wearing a corset and a skirt, who may or may not have been a man. (Their vocals were turned down somewhat in the mix, but I definitely heard at least one female voice.) Neither was, as they say, a "spring chicken".

2. Andy Bell's outfit was frightening, although at least we'd been pre-warned about it. As the night wore on, he stripped down to a tatooed, flesh-colored onesy leotard. He is also not a spring chicken. He has a bit of a pot belly, and once again, I saw breasts. (Not making fun of the man's body -- he's actually in much better shape than I am. I am making fun of his fashion sense. But then again, I'm sure that so was he.)

3. I want Vince Clarke's job. He's the most relaxed mf'er I've ever seen on a stage, even more so than Stephin Merritt (who is not so much relaxed as mopey). He has most of his music pre-programmed, so that he mostly just pushes a button here and there, then lets the music pour forth. I'm pretty sure he's already got next year's tour, and the year after's as well, programmed in there already. Once in awhile, he straps on an acoustic guitar. He might have even strummed it occasionally.

4. The stage was visually interesting. Andy Bell played and danced mostly at the front of the stage on stage level. Behind him, on either side, was a lit door frame with a short stairway, once for each of the two backup singers. (Did he ever even introduce them? I don't remember if he did). There was another door frame in the middle, which led up to a lit balcony center stage, where Vince played (or didn't) all night, above the others' heads.

5. The Beacon Theater is pretty old, and when everyone dances, you can feel the whole balcony bounce. I posted on Sputnik about this, and suggested that it would collapse one day, and I was glad that that day hadn't been on Saturday. But one of my friends on there assured me that the fact that it's flexible and moves is actually a good thing, and makes a collapse less likely. I'll take his word for it. Nevertheless, I was going to suggest that if you go to the Beacon, you sit downstairs. But then I thought about it, and realized you wouldn't want the damned thing coming down on top of you either. So don't worry about it, just go and enjoy yourself. It won't come down. Probably.

6. They played about five songs from the new album, and I realized that the reason a lot of '80s fans aren't crazy about it is that it's much slower and less danceable than their older material. The band used the songs in this show mostly to give poor Andy a rest -- he moves around a lot, and he's got to be at least in his fifties. The new songs were received politely, if not enthusiastically. Most of the crowd probably needed a break from all the dancing as much as Andy did. They, too, were not all "spring chickens".

7. I was sorry they didn't play my favorite number from the World Be Gone album, "Still It's Not Over". But I knew they probably wouldn't. According to setlist.fm, they've only played it three times during the whole tour.

8. They played a 21-song set, with a 1-song encore, "A Little Respect".

9. My favorite songs of the night were "Oh L'Amour", "Love to Hate You", a cover of Blondie's "Atomic", and "A Little Respect". Denise also mentioned "Blue Savannah Sun" as a highlight.

In retrospect, I'd say that Erasure put on a really good show. I wish I could have seen it a day or so later, when I'd have been in more a mindset to enjoy it. I also wish I'd seen Reed and Caroline. I've watched a couple of their videos since then, and I liked them, so I ordered their new album. (And one of these days, I'll probably review it). Not sure if Erasure's crowd dug them, though. The general feedback Denise seems to be getting from her WLIR group is that everyone thought they were pretty weird.

Anyway,  hope that in spite of my sour emotional state for the night, I was able to give you a general sense of what the show was like. I'm going to bet that for most of the crowd that was there, they're going to rate it as one of their favorite shows of the year. As for me, I'm just glad we were sitting far enough away that my blurry eyes didn't really get a clear look at Andy Bell's onesy.

Retro Futura 2018

Last summer, Denise and I attended the Retro Futura tour, or as I then labeled it "Six '80s Bands in Search of a Headliner" tour, on its Atlantic City stop. This year, the lineup was a little less interesting to me (I was really kind of psyched to see Men Without Hats last year), but the venue was one of my favorites, the NYCB Theater in Westbury (aka the Westbury Music Fair). The lineup included (in the order I expected them to go on in) Tony Lewis from The Outfield, Annabella Lwin from Bow Wow Wow, Limahl of Kajagoogoo, Modern English (the only holdovers from last year's tour), ABC, and Belinda Carlisle. Tony Lewis replaced Nick Heyward of Haircut 100, who was originally scheduled to be part of the tour. Also, I think in some locations, the band Expose is scheduled to perform (not sure who they're replacing, if anyone).

Denise and I thought it looked like an interesting lineup. We've seen Annabella with Bow Wow Wow (on a bill that included the Basals, or Iridesense, or possibly both), and we saw Modern English on last year's tour. We've seen Belinda a couple of times with The Go-Go's, but never as a solo artist. And we figured seeing ABC, Limahl, and Nick Heyward (who was still part of the lineup when we bought the tickets), could be cool. And especially because it was at the Westbury Music Fair, a venue we both like a lot, we figured we'd just go ahead and get some tickets.

Now we've had some problematic times in our house lately. Nothing terrible, but the kind of issues that a lot of families go through when their kids go through difficult stages. And one of the ways that Denise has been handling it is by occasionally reliving her club days to relieve her stress. She's connected with a group of friends who keep a WLIR fan page on Facebook. I've never really been with her at any of their dance club meetups because, 1. I wasn't a club kid. My dancing skills equal those of Frankenstein's monster, if he had a broomstick shoved up his butt, and 2. We usually trade off, so that when one of us goes out, the other guards the home front, thanks to some of these family issues I've been talking about. (I met a few of them before the OMD show in Manhattan, but that was very briefly, and in a room that was too loud and overcrowded to really talk much to anyone.) Naturally, a show like this attracts WLIR lovers like picnic baskets attract Yogi Bear and BooBoo. So Denise was excited that the group was having a pre-show meetup/tailgate party in the Westbury Music Fair parking lot. (Our son was staying with relatives upstate, so for once, we were both able to get out for a night).

Unfortunately, I had a phone call for work that I needed to take that kept us from leaving the house before 5PM. (The show was starting at 7PM). And, as usual, there was heavy Friday rush-hour traffic plus an accident on the LIE, so we caught maybe 15 minutes with her friends in the parking lot before it was time to head inside to the show.

The whole theater was opened up for this show, meaning that we'd be seeing the venue's famous rotating stage. (It's been awhile since I saw this. The last bunch of shows I saw there were in the half-round). As the show began, the venue was about half full. In front of me was a woman who enjoyed holding her phone over her head, so she could both tape the performances and block my view at the same time. She sat there for the first two of three sets, until the actual ticket holder for the seat showed up (more on him later), and the usher kicked her out. (Stun gun! Stun gun! Stun gun!)

The first three artists all shared the same backing band, which included a fairly young looking (for this crowd) female keyboard player, and a Chris Peters looking mf'er on bass (sans the white lab coat). As it turned out, the order of the performances was different than what we anticipated. Up first was Annabella. She came out wearing a hat I'm pretty sure she stole from Mr. Monopoly, a black sequined jacket, and some rather tight, and colorful pants. She performed an all-too-brief trio of songs, closing with Bow Wow Wow's big hit, "I Want Candy".

Next up, again to my surprise, was Limahl. He was wearing something yellowish, and is still a very skinny man, with stylish, (though more controlled than in his heyday) hair. He too sang a brief set, closing with Kajagoogoo's big hit, "Too Shy".

Up next was Tony Lewis, who received a pretty good reaction from the crowd, which had filled in considerably by this point. A word here about all three of the opening sets: Obviously, the sound man was a huge fan of the backup band. He must have been, because although people paid their money to see famous and popular '80s singers, he had the band turned up so loud in relation to the vocals that Annabella had to shriek in order to try to compete with them, and Limahl's vocals were washed away entirely -- you could only really hear him on one of his four songs. I don't know if the sound man works for the venue or is traveling with the tour, but boo sound man!

Luckily, Tony Lewis is a more traditional rock singer than the first two (although he looks like an older version of Mario, sans his Luigi), so his vocals at least gave the band a run for their money. He performed a very energetic 5-song set (which got both the crowd and the band really moving), closing with The Outfield's best-known hit, "Your Love". (You know it -- "I just wanna use your love toniiiiight/I don't wanna lose your love toniiiiiight!".)

At this point, the backing band left the stage (breaking the sound man's heart), and Modern English set up shop. Playing as a 6-piece, they all wore black, and mostly wore jackets, even though it was a pretty hot evening. They played a fine 5-song set, which included one number from their decent 2017 album, Take Me to the Trees. They closed with what is far-and-away their best known song, one of the seminal hits of the 1980s, "I Melt With You". (Does anyone here remember the Nicholas Cage film this was featured in, Valley Girl? That was the first thing I ever saw him in.) This was one of the highlights of the night.

Next up was Belinda Carlisle, who I would have guessed would have been the headliner. Now the last time I saw Belinda was at a Go-Go's show at this same Westbury venue. I'd seen them a few years earlier at Jones Beach, and they were great. Then, when I saw them at Westbury, the sound was mixed so that the band largely drowned Belinda out. I thought this was just bad sound at first, until I listened more closely, and discovered that her voice was all over the place, and the sound man was protecting her. I figured her voice was just burnt out like poor Ian Anderson's, but then I saw a DVD of a concert The Go-Go's gave in Central Park at a later date, and she sounded great. I was confused about this until I read her bio. Then I realized that the Westbury concert I saw was likely during her heavy drug days. Give me a "D"! Give me an "R". Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect out of her tonight.

As it turned  out, it was somewhere in the middle. She's lost a little vocally. Mainly, she's lost that cute little growl she used to have in her voice back in her Go-Go's days. She still sounds decent, but her voice doesn't have the bite it used to.

By the time Belinda came on, the crowd was worked up, and the venue was pretty full, although there were some empty seats to be found. About four rows in front of me was a male gay couple who looked about fifteen years younger than most of the rest of the crowd. Seated directly in front me was a mountain wearing human clothing. He wasn't fat so much as he was broad, and he was quite tall. Man Mountain was pretty well behaved on his own. But the gay couple were obviously big Belinda fans, and every time they got up to shake their butts (which was pretty much for all of Belinda's best songs), they blocked Man Mountain's view, causing him to stand up too. This basically caused a full solar eclipse for me. The sun, the moon, and Belinda and her whole band were totally blotted out. I moved my head from side to side, trying vainly to see around him. But it was like trying to see around a 16-car freight train. Denise was up dancing also, but I've already told you about my dancing skills. So I sat and watched most of Belinda's set on the overhead monitors.

In any event, Belinda performed an extremely well received 9-song set. Her backing band consisted of the Chris Peters looking mf'er from the backing band from the first three sets (now on regular guitar), plus (I think) a trio of guys who later turned out to be part of ABC. (I guess they have to cut costs where they can on these multi-band tours). Belinda opened with one of her biggest solo hits, "Mad About You", then thrilled the crowd (myself included) by going into "Head Over Heels", one of my favorite Go-Go's songs. As it turned out, the set was almost evenly split between her solo hits (like "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", which she closed with, and "Circle in the Sand", which might have been her best vocal number of the night), and Go-Go's classics such as "Vacation", "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We've Got the Beat", which she did all in a row. Overall, I'd say she was the most popular act of the night, and deservedly so.

ABC closed the show. You know how sometimes you go to a concert of a band you know somewhat, and every other song they play, you say, "Oh! I know that song," and "I know that one, too!"? Well, that didn't happen for me here.

Now in their favor, I'd tell you that although I really had a hard time getting into a lot of their set, for the most part, I was alone in that. The crowd was pretty enthusiastic about them, and Denise was certainly dancing up a storm right along with them. But on the other hand, I'd say that about a quarter, or at least a fifth, of the crowd actually left before ABC went on, so that's a mark against them.

Anyway, they were pretty tight as a band, but they're too funky for my taste. (They were also mostly dressed in ties and jackets, which just pisses me off for off some reason. It feels really old-fashioned to me, the kind of thing the bands of the sixties and seventies successfully broke away from). Of their 10-song set, I only really knew three of them, and one of those ("Poison Arrow") I don't really like. I do like "Be Near Me" and "The Look of Love", probably their two biggest hits, (and also the two songs they closed with). And I might have heard their opener, "When Smoky Sings", before, which was another one of their better numbers. Still, I was a little let down by their set, especially following after Belinda Carlisle's. Maybe my energy was just flagging.

After the show, we hooked up again with some of the stout hearts from Denise's WLIR group in the parking lot, and got some of the backstage info about the order of the show. I don't know how fluid it will be on future dates, but some of the things that affected the order of tonight's show included, 1. Annabella was up first because she had to jump on a flight to England to perform the next night at Let's Rock Shrewsbury with performers like UB40 and Midge Ure; and 2. Belinda went on early because she was still wiped out from performing with some (or all) of the other Go-Go's at a preview for the new Go-Go's Broadway musical, Head Over Heels.

In any event, Retro Futura 2018 was a pretty fun show, even though I wouldn't rate it as highly as last year's Retro Futura show (which was actually one of my favorite shows for all of last year). We got to enjoy some good music at a good venue, and I got to finally meet some of Denise's new WLIR friends. This one was definitely worth the price of the tickets.

Review of Eurythmics' "1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)"

I posted the following review earlier this afternoon on the Sputnik Music website:

Review Summary: This soundtrack album was the final entry from Eurythmics' electro-pop period.

1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) was released (wait for it...) in 1984. It's one of those albums where the story behind it might be as interesting as the music. The band was commissioned by Virgin Films to write music for the soundtrack of their upcoming film Nineteen Eighty-Four, based on the dystopian George Orwell novel about a future where everything is controlled by a dishonest and malevolent government. Unbeknownst to them, however, the director Michael Radford had no interest in using an electro-pop musical backdrop for his story, and he had already asked British composer Dominic Muldowney to write a more traditionally classical score for the same film. Hijinks ensued. Radford edited the film together using only Muldowney's score. The band got pissed, as they had been dragged into this conflict unknowingly, and now they were having their efforts unfairly disparaged. The studio intervened and re-edited the film, this time using the music from both scores. The film received some awards, which gave the director the opportunity to publicly complain about having been "forced" to use Eurythmics' music. Good times. 

This album, therefore, was released as a "soundtrack" album, although the version of the music that is actually used in the film is significantly less electronic than the version released here on the LP. Within the context of Eurythmics' musical history, it can be seen as the third, and final, album of Eurythmic's electronic period, following after Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and Touch (both released in 1983). With their following album, Be Yourself Tonight (1985), Eurythmics moved heavily in a more traditionally R&B direction. 

The album didn't do nearly as well in the charts as the band's two previous LPs, for several reasons. For one, it wasn't as heavily promoted as either of those had been. Because the film belonged to Virgin films, the soundtrack was released by the Virgin label instead of Eurythmic's usual RCA label, which understandably treated it as a one-off soundtrack instead of as a major pop release. Also, as a soundtrack, the LP was much less single-heavy than were the band's previous two releases. The only successful single from 1984 was "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" which did well in the UK and Europe (but tanked badly in the U.S.). In fact, most of the songs on the LP didn't even have traditional lyrics -- they were largely instrumentals that included Annie Lennox's vocal grunts, cries and other what-have-you's.

So how is the music on the LP? Well, I'd have to admit, in listening to it recently for this review, I've had to revise my opinion upwards. When Eurythmics first formed as a duo, it was with the intention of taking pop music in a more experimental direction, and this is about as experimental as the band ever got. Some of the tracks are excellent. "Doubleplusgood" is a joyous musical illustration of Orwell's notion of government "doublespeak" that gets it just right, and "Julia", while it wasn't successful as a single, is haunting and beautiful. As for "Sexcrime", while it's not the typical hook-laden single, it is a pretty decent song -- there's a nice tension between Lennox's somewhat ethereal verses, and the harsh robotic choruses.

I think the primary negative of the album is this -- whatever their aspirations (and what their detractors would label as pretensions), Eurythmics was really a singles band. To the extent they are remembered today, it's for Top 40 hits and MTV music videos. 1984, while it contains some striking and memorable music, is light in the area that Eurythmics is best known for, the three-to-four minute catchy pop tune. It does, however, do an excellent job of capturing much of the feeling of the Orwell novel, which is presumably what Lennox and Dave Stewart set out to do. So on its own terms, it's more successful than not.

Overall, I'd rate 1984 as a pretty good album. While it doesn't have a dominant single such as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", "Here Comes the Rain Again" or "Who's That Girl"" from the band's previous two albums, it does have atmosphere and some interesting music. In retrospect, I see it as a final, if slightly flawed, entry in what was for me Eurythmics' most interesting musical period.


Rating: 3 of 5 stars