Gary SteelREVIEW: OMD, The Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Jon Stevens, Diesel, The Narcs (with Kim Willoughby) – Eventfinda Stadium, North Shore, Auckland, Thursday February 27.
Despite a strong aversion to such things, GARY STEEL attends an ‘80s nostalgia music festival and survives to tell the tale.
“Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be,” goes the old quip, and it turns out to be true. Literally. Nostalgia literally dies with each generation and thusly, it’s new to each successive generation in turn. And although many of those who experienced the pop hits of the 1980s are now rather long in the tooth, that era of tall haircuts and power shoulder pads and boys wearing eyeshadow is clearly worth revisiting, if tonight’s predominantly silver-haired crowd is anything to go by.
The Eventfinda theatre (formerly the North Shore Events Centre in Wairau Valley) hosted the first of three Sounds Series multi-artist ‘80s concerts on Thursday night, with two more to follow in Christchurch (March 1) and Wellington (March 2), respectively. The venue is devoid of personality, and it’s a testament to the skills of the sound crew that the sonics weren’t a chaotic mess. Up in the seated area (looking side on to the stage), the sound was tinnitus-inducing, but down on the floor, it was fulsome and pumping.
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for The Narcs, a perfectly good jobbing Christchurch pop-rock band that enjoyed several minor hits but was overshadowed by the critical adulation bestowed upon the hipper Flying Nun acts. They toured the big pubs, played at those horrendous suburban taverns, won a few awards in 1984, and toured Australia, but they haven’t remained in the public consciousness. They were first off the block early this evening and played to a small but fairly enthusiastic crowd. They sounded well-rehearsed, and the bonus up their sleeves was the addition of former When The Cat’s Away singer Kim Willoughby, who added a bit of glam to proceedings with her shiny loon pants. Her presence also made it possible to add a few female-centric covers like Jenny Morris’s ‘She Has To Be Loved’.
Aussie rocker Diesel (aka Mark Lizotte) ramped things up with his meat and potatoes Aussie rock, and the crowd went wild for his energetic presentation. I hated it. Getting a whiff of a poorly calibrated diesel 4WD is enough to make me physically ill, and enduring his set was nearly as bad. Bruce Springsteen fans are sure to have loved his white boy rock’n’soul moves, but his voice was mixed so loud that it hurt, and it droned on and on as the band went through their cliched moves.
The moment Jon Stevens hit the stage, it felt like the first two bands were simply entrees to the main event. The audience numbers had swelled, and they went wild for his well-practiced stage moves and fist-pumping crowd-pleasers. The music was horrible, for the most part a rabble-rousing corruption of U2’s most wantonly anthemic moments and entirely lacking in subtlety. But Stevens’ vocal abilities and showmanship in general were astounding. The man has a fantastic set of pipes (ditto his brother, Frankie Stevens) and spent the next 50 minutes or so using them with abandon. At times, if I closed my eyes and ignored the crashing and mashing of the music, I could hear the rock’n’roll imploring of Little Richard and the gospel wailing of classic soul singers. The faux U2 moves were clearly from his Noiseworks era, while the music got considerably more groovesome during renditions of songs from his short time in INXS after the death of Michael Hutchence. At the end of the show, Stevens condescended to sing fragments of the two songs that made him way back in ’79 (‘Jezebel’) and ’80 (his version of ‘Montego Bay’), but it was clear that these early hits weren’t (understandably) on his agenda.
In contrast to every other act of the night, Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey put on a set that freshened up the 40-year-old songs. Easily the highlight of the evening, their set pressed all the buttons. While all the hits were rolled out, they were given cleverly revised arrangements that allowed the odd indulgence like a tantalizingly brief jazz-inflected synthesizer solo or a rousing percussion interlude. The secret ingredient is the three young women – Charlotte Raven on keys and electric cello, Paulina Szczepaniak on drums and percussion and Vicky Warwick on bass and keys – who bring a whole new thing to those now-classic pop hits. There was a great sense of unpredictability in the presentation, as Charlotte would leave her keyboard podium to play electric cello, or Paulina would abandon her drum kit to get physical up front with a tabla. The youthful energy seemed to impact on Tom as he playfully darted around the stage, concentrating on vocal presentation one minute, the next adding flourishes to a keyboard or a spot of percussion or donning an electric guitar for a bit of plank spanking.
Those old Thompson Twins songs stand up remarkably well. I wasn’t a fan at the time and was barely aware of them, but I can attest to their earworm durability. Highlights included the Middle-Eastern-inflected ‘The Gap’, the ballad ‘Lay Your Hands On Me’ (featuring the aforementioned “invisible” electric cello), ‘Doctor Doctor’ (with its Keith Emerson-like synth solo), and inevitably, that great supermarket anthem, ‘Hold Me Now’, which they felt confident in letting the audience sing first time round. Hearing these songs live and loud, you’re aware of the dynamics, the energy and the layering, but beyond that, there’s a melancholy running through many of them that could easily make them fall flat in a live context. Remarkably, the audience dig it all, lapping up the whole presentation. The one “what the fuck is that?” moment is when they play the title tune from Tom’s 2018 album Science Fiction, a song that stands up well against those ‘80s big hits but which few of his fanbase got to hear at the time.
The final act and headliner was OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark), a UK group that, like The Thompson Twins, hadn’t performed in New Zealand since 1986. Like Bailey’s band, OMD are predominantly electronic and somewhat of a salve to those of us for whom the signature sound of the ‘80s was synths rather than guitars! I saw OMD perform at Wellington Town Hall in December ’86 and remember being somewhat underwhelmed, however. The same was true of tonight’s performance. Lacking Tom’s band’s visual panache, they relied almost entirely on the songs and their renditions of such, and they appeared to hold the audience in the palm of their collective hands. Although I owned the group’s debut, Architecture & Morality, for many years, at some point, I traded it in because ultimately, they’re just a bit soft and MOR for my sensibilities. And nothing’s changed.
Like The Thompson Twins, they’re expert at writing catchy earworms, and they marry these to electronics that, at times, are reminiscent of Kraftwerk, but without the wit or playfulness or unpredictability of that group. And that’s the thing: there’s nothing spontaneous or eclectic or surprising about their music, which for me leaves a yawning gap where I want musical information. ‘Electricity’ is a good case in point. It has the naivety of early Human League but none of the quirkiness and sheer oddness that made that group so compelling. ‘Messages’ even sounds a lot like a cross between The Human League, John Foxx and Gary Numan, without adding any special sauce. I need more from music, and while they’re very pleasant, after an already long night of music, they couldn’t hold my attention. Promising a full 70-minute set, I lasted about half of that time before I reluctantly headed for the door. (Hey it was a week night, I’d had to get up at sparrow’s fart to drive all the way to Auckland, and I’m no spring chicken!)
It was profoundly odd for me – a stated anti-nostalgist – attending an event based on nostalgia, but it was educative, too. I’ve come to the conclusion that my attitude is neurodivergent, and it was fun watching so many people experience the joy of revisiting some of their favourite bands and tunes from 40-odd years ago. I can’t feel nostalgia like that, and I’m constantly reassessing music old and new rather than assessing it as a fixed thing that summons memories of events and special people and places. Having seen the way the audience lapped up tonight’s nostalgia, I kind of wish I could do that.
The oddness was also in being part of an audience who were mostly in their 50s, 60s and 70s and shaking their old bones, sometimes stiffly. Back when I was a 20-something writing about rock music, I would never have predicted that “our” music would one day be nostalgia. We were futuristic!
The lineup? Well, the audience seemed to like it. If I was putting together an ‘80s show, there’s no way I would bring in someone like Diesel, an Australian whose presence in New Zealand was marginal and who was really more of an early ‘90s thing. I would have liked a more curatorially sophisticated show, but hey, my lineup choice would, in all likelihood, lead to small ticket sales. And that’s why I’m blabbing on about the show rather than organizing it. Speaking of which, the show was organized with military precision, and each band ran almost perfectly to schedule. The sound, the visuals, the access to free water, the food available (a few more vegan/veg options might have been nice)… it was all superb.
+ Sounds Series 2025 features OMD, Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Diesel, Jon Stevens and The Narcs with Kim Willoughby.
The remaining shows are at: Selwyn Sounds, Christchurch, 1 March and Hutt Sounds, Wellington, 2 March.
