Retro Futura, or the return of Tom Bailey
The annual Retro Futura tour, previously known as the Regeneration tour, is something I've been aware of for awhile, and have been to on at least one occasion when Human League was part of it. Though I was disappointed a year or two ago when Human League were again announced to be on the tour, but then ended up not being on it, I was very intrigued this year when they made the announcement that Tom Bailey, the musical force behind my first favorite band, The Thompson Twins, was coming out of "pop retirement" to headline the tour.
At first, in my busy cocoon of a life, it was hard to muster much excitement. After all, I wasn't initially too impressed with the rest of the lineup, and I was of course disappointed that Allanah and Joe (the other two "twins") would not be taking part. But my friend Marc's enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I was texting with him while we were waiting for the minute that tickets would go on sale, so we could both get tickets to "the pit" at The Greek Theatre, where we would be among the front rows.
Marc pointed out a few days later that the tour would be going to Mandalay Beach in Las Vegas the weekend after the stop in LA. I marked it on my calendar just in case and didn't think much about it for awhile.
As the time was drawing near (we bought tickets at least three months in advance), I did finally really start looking forward to it, revisiting the old Thompson Twins songs and my memories of superfandom. I remembered finding the "Dynamite" magazine in my cousin Travis's room where I saw a photo of the Thompson Twins and thought, yes, I should check them out more - I only knew that they had sang some of the songs I heard on the radio, like "Hold Me Now" and "Lay Your Hands on Me," which were still getting airplay several years after they had been released. I went through my record collection, the Thompson Twins section of which rivals even my Human League collection. I have all the albums, 12" singles, imports, compilations, and picture discs. Well, I used to have even more but I sold some of them to fund my move to LA back in 2000.
Finally, the big day was upon us. Marc came and picked me up from work along with three other friends who were pretty much equally excited for the show. We made our way into the venue and were happy to find we could chose from being in the very front row just to the left, or in the second row right in the middle; we opted for the latter.
We even had time to visit the merch table before the show, where I got an autographed copy of a new "Remixes and Rarities" compilation album that hadn't even been released commercially yet, and a t-shirt with the band's classic logo on it - something I had unbelievably never owned yet.
The show started with Katrina, of Katrina and the Waves. I really enjoyed her set, and felt that she got the short end of the stick by having to go on first. She certainly didn't act like that affected her, though, because she was happy, energetic, and seemed to be loving those of us in the front of the crowd who were cheering and dancing for her.
I must admit that before this, I was pretty unfamiliar with The Waves. Obviously I know the song "Walking on Sunshine," as everyone does, and I even owned the 7" single. The b-side of the single was "Going Down To Liverpool," a song that most people associate with The Bangles, who covered it shortly after. Other than that, all the songs were new to me, but I really loved a couple of them: "Red Wine & Whisky" and "Do You Want Crying" have now been permanently added into the cannon of my favorite songs.
Up next was China Crisis, who I was totally unfamiliar with. I had heard the name before, but never any of the music. Before the show I tried to get acquainted with their material on Spotify, but I definitely didn't recognize and of it and it was a little to mellow and folksy for me to get too excited about. It ended up being a great time for a bathroom break, but I have to say they both still had great hair; despite they greying, the volume and style of their locks would have done the '80's proud. I did enjoy some of their songs but again, not really enough to explore much further.
The last of the opening acts to utilize the house band (which had backed up the previous two acts) was Midge Ure, who I knew a little about through his involvement with Ultravox and Visage. Most fans of '80's new-wave and music videos are familiar with the song and video "Vienna" which was one of the very first music videos to have been shot in the style of a movie - very big and cinematic. It was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who also directed videos for Duran Duran and Human League. I was most impressed with Midge's guitar skills. He did a really energetic version of "Fade to Grey" over which I obnoxiously sang Kelly Osborne's "Day After Day" over, hopefully not loud enough for anyone other than Marc to hear. Of course he did "Vienna" which was a great moment, and a rousing rendition of "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," which began with an extended guitar solo that was really powerful!
There was some stage work to be done following his set to prepare for the two headliners. Howard Jones came on, dressed in a bright orange suit to match his band (drummer and keyboardist) and equipment.
We too were wearing orange as Marc was in the know and designed our t-shirts as such (see photo above). Side note - our shirts were so much better than the official tour shirts that even the girls at the merchandise table were saying that Marc's company should have been in charge of them. Anyway, I had a little bit of a crush on Howard's sexy drummer, which made the set slightly more interesting that it would have been otherwise.
Howard Jones' music is kinda like vanilla, it's sweet and there's nothing wrong with it and it makes you feel good but it's probably not the first flavor you'd pick when there are so many others available. But hearing his MANY 80's hits is always fun (he seems to live on tour constantly as he's always playing at these types of festivals in addition to his own frequent solo shows) and he is very upbeat and well versed in keeping a crowd happy.
Finally, it was time for Tom Bailey to take the stage! I was hit with the realization that although his songs had been the most influential to me in my formative years, and I had long since memorized every lyrics and every note, I had never before seen them and heard them sung live! It was a pretty awesome to even fathom that, and as soon as he appeared onstage, carrying a flashlight in a nod to the old days, I was mesmerized!
With the relatively short amount of time allotted, even though he had the longest set, there was still not enough time to do anything other than the hugest of hits! The only surprises were that he added a couple of new verses to "If You Were Here," the song that ends the film "Sixteen Candles", and that he incorporated a little bit of "Into The Gap" into one of the other songs, I think "In the Name of Love."
Also, he didn't play "Lay Your Hands On Me," which disappointed some people but was fine by me. My favorites in the live setting were "You Take Me Up," which is probably my favorite song of theirs anyway, and "Love On Your Side," which usually is one of my lesser favorites but sounds great with the live, loud bass!
One last surprise was that for the encore, he began with a slowed-down version of "King for a Day", turning it into a bittersweet ballad. Of course he concluded his set with "Hold Me Now," at the end of which the audience turned into an acoustic sing-a-long after the band had finished. Tom and his female backing band, which he nicknamed "The Sisters of Mercy" took their bows while we continued to sing, and Tom Bailey left the stage after saying "I'm Back!"
A few weeks before the show, I was already excited enough that I made plans with Marc and Dylan to see the show in Vegas, so a week after the LA show, we piled into the car, along with my friend Jarod, and we made the 4+ hour trek to Sin City. We got there early enough to check into our room at the Luxor and have a bite to eat before making our way to Mandalay Bay and then to the "beach" where we have seen several concerts before.
The atmosphere was very fun - the concerts take place on a faux beach, with sand surrounding a huge wave pool and the stage standing tall on the left side. People were much less determined to crowd around the front of the stage, many of them happy to lay out a beach blanket and watch the show from afar. This made it easy for us to come and go, taking a break to go swimming here and there. Even though the bands played pretty much the same sets as before, the night seemed to last much longer, with a huge gap in between Howard and Tom this time as they apparently had technical issues that delayed his set.
Katrina seemed to be in an even better mood, and she even pointed to Marc and I in the audience and called out to us! It was fun to hear her songs again so soon. I again took a pee break during China Crisis, and we made friends with a girl from Idaho who had never heard of China Crisis or Ultravox. We kept telling her she would at least recognize "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," but it didn't ring any bells for her.
I really enjoyed splashing around in the pool during Howard Jones and had fun catching the very cute, very young lifeguard boy dancing and singing along with one of the songs.
After the aforementioned gap, Tom finally came on very late. I felt kind of bad because it seemed that by then the audience had thinned out a little. Maybe they had never intended to stay that long, or maybe they got tired of waiting. In any event, I decided to try and make up for it by screaming at the top of my longs and loudly singing along to every word. I remembered times in my twenties where I would lose my voice after a good concert and decided I wanted to recreate one of those days. However, despite my hooting and hollering, I never lost my voice.
I know bands hate to be thought of in a nostalgic manner, but the truth of the matter is that music is probably the most effective emotional time machine. A song can swiftly take you back to another place in time. Hearing all these songs together can really refreshen old memories. Singing along to "Walking on Sunshine" in the car with my cousins, staying up late at night to try and catch an "old" Thompson Twins video on MTV, even, oddly enough, my college years came swirling back with "No One Is To Blame," which was featured in "Romy & Michele's High School Reunion."
I would have loved to tell Tom Bailey how much his music had meant to me growing up. Even though Allanah and Joe weren't there, Tom embodied the songs and made it clear just how much ownership he had of them. Hopefully my cheering and dancing got the point across.
At first, in my busy cocoon of a life, it was hard to muster much excitement. After all, I wasn't initially too impressed with the rest of the lineup, and I was of course disappointed that Allanah and Joe (the other two "twins") would not be taking part. But my friend Marc's enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I was texting with him while we were waiting for the minute that tickets would go on sale, so we could both get tickets to "the pit" at The Greek Theatre, where we would be among the front rows.
Marc pointed out a few days later that the tour would be going to Mandalay Beach in Las Vegas the weekend after the stop in LA. I marked it on my calendar just in case and didn't think much about it for awhile.
As the time was drawing near (we bought tickets at least three months in advance), I did finally really start looking forward to it, revisiting the old Thompson Twins songs and my memories of superfandom. I remembered finding the "Dynamite" magazine in my cousin Travis's room where I saw a photo of the Thompson Twins and thought, yes, I should check them out more - I only knew that they had sang some of the songs I heard on the radio, like "Hold Me Now" and "Lay Your Hands on Me," which were still getting airplay several years after they had been released. I went through my record collection, the Thompson Twins section of which rivals even my Human League collection. I have all the albums, 12" singles, imports, compilations, and picture discs. Well, I used to have even more but I sold some of them to fund my move to LA back in 2000.
Finally, the big day was upon us. Marc came and picked me up from work along with three other friends who were pretty much equally excited for the show. We made our way into the venue and were happy to find we could chose from being in the very front row just to the left, or in the second row right in the middle; we opted for the latter.
Marc, Matt and I waiting for the show to begin.
We even had time to visit the merch table before the show, where I got an autographed copy of a new "Remixes and Rarities" compilation album that hadn't even been released commercially yet, and a t-shirt with the band's classic logo on it - something I had unbelievably never owned yet.
Me with my swag!
The show started with Katrina, of Katrina and the Waves. I really enjoyed her set, and felt that she got the short end of the stick by having to go on first. She certainly didn't act like that affected her, though, because she was happy, energetic, and seemed to be loving those of us in the front of the crowd who were cheering and dancing for her.
Katrina kicking the show off in high gear.
I must admit that before this, I was pretty unfamiliar with The Waves. Obviously I know the song "Walking on Sunshine," as everyone does, and I even owned the 7" single. The b-side of the single was "Going Down To Liverpool," a song that most people associate with The Bangles, who covered it shortly after. Other than that, all the songs were new to me, but I really loved a couple of them: "Red Wine & Whisky" and "Do You Want Crying" have now been permanently added into the cannon of my favorite songs.
"I'm walkin' on sunshine, whoa-oh!"
Up next was China Crisis, who I was totally unfamiliar with. I had heard the name before, but never any of the music. Before the show I tried to get acquainted with their material on Spotify, but I definitely didn't recognize and of it and it was a little to mellow and folksy for me to get too excited about. It ended up being a great time for a bathroom break, but I have to say they both still had great hair; despite they greying, the volume and style of their locks would have done the '80's proud. I did enjoy some of their songs but again, not really enough to explore much further.
The dudes from China Crisis.
The last of the opening acts to utilize the house band (which had backed up the previous two acts) was Midge Ure, who I knew a little about through his involvement with Ultravox and Visage. Most fans of '80's new-wave and music videos are familiar with the song and video "Vienna" which was one of the very first music videos to have been shot in the style of a movie - very big and cinematic. It was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who also directed videos for Duran Duran and Human League. I was most impressed with Midge's guitar skills. He did a really energetic version of "Fade to Grey" over which I obnoxiously sang Kelly Osborne's "Day After Day" over, hopefully not loud enough for anyone other than Marc to hear. Of course he did "Vienna" which was a great moment, and a rousing rendition of "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," which began with an extended guitar solo that was really powerful!
"This means nothing to me, oh, Vienna!"
There was some stage work to be done following his set to prepare for the two headliners. Howard Jones came on, dressed in a bright orange suit to match his band (drummer and keyboardist) and equipment.
Orange you glad he showed up?
We too were wearing orange as Marc was in the know and designed our t-shirts as such (see photo above). Side note - our shirts were so much better than the official tour shirts that even the girls at the merchandise table were saying that Marc's company should have been in charge of them. Anyway, I had a little bit of a crush on Howard's sexy drummer, which made the set slightly more interesting that it would have been otherwise.
Jon Atkinson, Howard's delicious drummer.
Howard Jones' music is kinda like vanilla, it's sweet and there's nothing wrong with it and it makes you feel good but it's probably not the first flavor you'd pick when there are so many others available. But hearing his MANY 80's hits is always fun (he seems to live on tour constantly as he's always playing at these types of festivals in addition to his own frequent solo shows) and he is very upbeat and well versed in keeping a crowd happy.
And he has great keytars!
Finally, it was time for Tom Bailey to take the stage! I was hit with the realization that although his songs had been the most influential to me in my formative years, and I had long since memorized every lyrics and every note, I had never before seen them and heard them sung live! It was a pretty awesome to even fathom that, and as soon as he appeared onstage, carrying a flashlight in a nod to the old days, I was mesmerized!
The flashlight hearkened back to the song "We Are Detective" which played as a prelude.
The lighting and stage design was fantastic!
With the relatively short amount of time allotted, even though he had the longest set, there was still not enough time to do anything other than the hugest of hits! The only surprises were that he added a couple of new verses to "If You Were Here," the song that ends the film "Sixteen Candles", and that he incorporated a little bit of "Into The Gap" into one of the other songs, I think "In the Name of Love."
"Just like the rain, I'll be always falling, only to rise and fall again."
Also, he didn't play "Lay Your Hands On Me," which disappointed some people but was fine by me. My favorites in the live setting were "You Take Me Up," which is probably my favorite song of theirs anyway, and "Love On Your Side," which usually is one of my lesser favorites but sounds great with the live, loud bass!
Tom switched from keyboards to guitars and percussion in between roaming the stage and singing.
One last surprise was that for the encore, he began with a slowed-down version of "King for a Day", turning it into a bittersweet ballad. Of course he concluded his set with "Hold Me Now," at the end of which the audience turned into an acoustic sing-a-long after the band had finished. Tom and his female backing band, which he nicknamed "The Sisters of Mercy" took their bows while we continued to sing, and Tom Bailey left the stage after saying "I'm Back!"
For "You Take Me Up" Tom threw a huge blue ball out into the crowd for us to keep in the air.
A few weeks before the show, I was already excited enough that I made plans with Marc and Dylan to see the show in Vegas, so a week after the LA show, we piled into the car, along with my friend Jarod, and we made the 4+ hour trek to Sin City. We got there early enough to check into our room at the Luxor and have a bite to eat before making our way to Mandalay Bay and then to the "beach" where we have seen several concerts before.
The atmosphere was very fun - the concerts take place on a faux beach, with sand surrounding a huge wave pool and the stage standing tall on the left side. People were much less determined to crowd around the front of the stage, many of them happy to lay out a beach blanket and watch the show from afar. This made it easy for us to come and go, taking a break to go swimming here and there. Even though the bands played pretty much the same sets as before, the night seemed to last much longer, with a huge gap in between Howard and Tom this time as they apparently had technical issues that delayed his set.
Katrina seemed to be in an even better mood, and she even pointed to Marc and I in the audience and called out to us! It was fun to hear her songs again so soon. I again took a pee break during China Crisis, and we made friends with a girl from Idaho who had never heard of China Crisis or Ultravox. We kept telling her she would at least recognize "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes," but it didn't ring any bells for her.
I really enjoyed splashing around in the pool during Howard Jones and had fun catching the very cute, very young lifeguard boy dancing and singing along with one of the songs.
After the aforementioned gap, Tom finally came on very late. I felt kind of bad because it seemed that by then the audience had thinned out a little. Maybe they had never intended to stay that long, or maybe they got tired of waiting. In any event, I decided to try and make up for it by screaming at the top of my longs and loudly singing along to every word. I remembered times in my twenties where I would lose my voice after a good concert and decided I wanted to recreate one of those days. However, despite my hooting and hollering, I never lost my voice.
He's back!!!
I know bands hate to be thought of in a nostalgic manner, but the truth of the matter is that music is probably the most effective emotional time machine. A song can swiftly take you back to another place in time. Hearing all these songs together can really refreshen old memories. Singing along to "Walking on Sunshine" in the car with my cousins, staying up late at night to try and catch an "old" Thompson Twins video on MTV, even, oddly enough, my college years came swirling back with "No One Is To Blame," which was featured in "Romy & Michele's High School Reunion."
I would have loved to tell Tom Bailey how much his music had meant to me growing up. Even though Allanah and Joe weren't there, Tom embodied the songs and made it clear just how much ownership he had of them. Hopefully my cheering and dancing got the point across.
Crowd shot at the Greek.
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