rlr (05/27/82)
Some quick reviews of albums and concerts: HUMAN LEAGUE - "DARE" ; Palladium (NYC) 5/7/82 Yes, it's electropop with all the cliches that go with it (electronic rhythm machines, synthesizers, catchy melodies). Everything I find distasteful about the genre is here. But damned if it doesn't stick to you like glue. I often find myself whistling "Love Action","Darkness", "Open Your Heart", "Things That Dreams Are Made Of", and the overplayed "Don't You Want Me", which still for some reason appeals to me. There's something very infectious about their music. Unfortunately, this infectiousness does not carry through in live performance. Their concert at the Palladium was very dry, to say the least. Some say that having an electronic rhythm track on tape and playing no "real" instruments (there was a bass player) makes for a dull performance. True, one could sense a lack of "live" energy emanating from the stage. (I heard that the same was true for Depeche Mode at the Ritz the same night. I was going to go there after the HL concert, but was put off by the prospect of standing in line to pay $11 more to see more dry performances.) But it should be said that the dryness of the performers, not the instruments, was probably the main factor in both these shows. Our Daughter's Wedding, e.g., put on great shows with only two guys on synthesizer/organ and one on synthetic percussion. Of course, in addition to the drum sequencer backbeat, he actually *hit* things to make sounds. (isn't that what percussion means) This "realism" resulted in a real energy emanating from the stage. The only live-ness at the HL show was Phil Oakey's feeble and stale attempts at humor (Hello, we're the Village People, this is a song called Cruising). It seems that bands in this genre are having a hard time presenting their music in a live context. (Pete Shelley used tapes not just for rhythm but for most of the instruments except his guitar, bass, & drums, and the show suffered for it.) If such bands want to be viable performing groups, they'll have to instill some life into their stage shows. Does this mean I've gone sour on the style? Hardly. Despite my disappointment with the concert, I still enjoy the album. I just hope they get their act together. SPARKS - City Gardens (Trenton) 5/26/82 I really liked Sparks the first time I saw them on TV. Russ Mael as the prima donna rock star vocalist, and Ron, his brother, as the eccentric (to put it mildly) pianist with the strange stage persona and the smirking face with Hitler's mustache. I liked "Kimono My House", especially "This Town Ain't Big Enough..." and "Talent is an Asset". I liked their collaboration years later with Giorgio Moroder (#1 in Heaven) which produced the song "Beat the Clock". I even liked some of their stuff since then. So why didn't I really like their concert last night? Probably because they've become the very thing they were parodying when they started out---a pompous self-indulgent glitter rock band absorbed in their stage personalities. My opinion--they didn't do enough old stuff (one song each from "Kimono" & "Propaganda", plus "Beat the Clock"), and the new stuff was pretty lame, though it was enervating at times. But that's my opinion. The crowd at City Gardens, normally a haven for would-be New Jersey "punks" (if you can imagine a skinhead driving his parents' BMW to the club while listening to WPLJ), was filled with bonafide Sparks freaks from all over the state and beyond. They ate it up, grabbing for pieces of clothing tossed at them and for pieces of flesh offered them (presumably for handshakes, but apparently some had other ideas). All in all, it was fun, and I'm really more anxious to get more of their earlier work, but you really have to be a maven to enjoy the show. Rich Rosen pyuxjj!rlr