bub@ames.UUCP (Bubbette McLeod) (12/04/84)
Yeah, well, Frankie came to San Francisco. Admittedly, I was a trifle
apprehensive. Their performance on Saturday Night Live was not overly
impressive (though I gave them the benefit of the doubt since I'd
imagine that live tv shows are not ALL that easy to do) and whoever
posted the review of a Canadian show was not overly impressed, but ...
hey, who can resist a first tour?
So ... first, we get nailed on the way into the Kabuki by some guy who's
photographing "street fashion" for Emporium. I had expected, maybe, a rather
gay, slightly campy crowd for Frankie, but it seemed to be the usual
young rock and roll crowd, buying lots of t-shirts with big letters.
I hadn't expected an opening act but we were forced to submit to a
semi-humorous, not very good juggler (I guess maybe the humor was the point
of his gig), and some solo act with tapes and video junk that was truly
awful. People started throwing napkins at him and, fortunately, he retired
from the stage after 4 songs. Then followed much, much too long a wait.
The lady across the table from me started speculating on the Kabuki's
breakfast menu. At this point, I'm pretty much assuming the evening's
going to be a bust. But ... finally ... the band came on. The show was terrific,
lots of lights, fireworks, smoke, etc. Fears that this was just a studio
band were laid to rest. They had lots of energy and a great stage
presence, particualarly Holly Johnson. There were three more people on
stage than are listed as members of Frankie, including one maniac with a
bank of keyboards at the back of the stage. Holly enjoyed playing in
San Francisco. He prefaced "Krisco Kisses" by asking by asking if everyone
knew what Krisco was for. When the audience did he said "Well, this IS
San Francisco" (please read in gay/camp voice inflection). The audience
jumped and jived and carried on and thoroughly loved the show. And
the band loved the audience, too. I was a bit disappointed the didn't
do "This is the last voice you will ever hear" routine. And the audience
kept, unsucessfully, trying to get them to play "Do You Know The Way to
San Jose." The encore of "Born To Run" was excellent. I'm glad someone finally
had the nerve to cover the song. After all, "Tramps like us, baby, we were
born to run" is really a rather punk sentiment.
Bubbette
{dual,hao,hplabs,ihnp4,philabs,vortex}!ames!bub