Dag 1405: Alive and kicking at the country club

It's great when things happen by chance.

Last night was just such an occasion.

anticipation

Some months ago Mr Cloudhand and I decided it was about time we had another trip out to a concert together. We each had a list of groups we wanted to see and The Cure was pretty high up on each or our lists. So every now and again I had a look on ticketmaster to see if there are any good gigs on the horizon. At some point I noticed that The Human League were going to be touring. I used to really like them and hadn't seen them live since 1980 so I had a look to see if they were playing in Leeds on a weekday night, thinking I could have gone after work. They weren't so I forgot about it and carried on looking for a suitable gig for the Grand Critical Mass/Cloudhand Royal International Gig of the Year Show Award Big Night OUt.

One friday after this I noticed somewhere that The Cure were postponing some gigs in America. This made me think that they may be going to play some gigs in Europe at some point so I set up an alert for them on the ticketmaster website.

When I went to bed that evening I checked my email and there was an email from ticketmaster saying The Cure would be playing a single UK date in 2008 and tickets would be on sale at 09:00 the next morning. So I was on the website at 09:00 the next morning and by 09:10 I had secured a pair of 'standing room only' tickets. If I hadn't put that alert in the day before I would not have known about it and it would have been sold out before I was even aware of it.

Although that was something that happened by chance, it wasn't what I was intending to write about, so lets get back to the core subject without further beating about the bush and going off at tangents, which is something I do sometimes do, but not on this occasion.

anticipation 2

So, I had my Cure tickets safely stored away and was thinking that I may have only managed to get to 2 gigs in 2007, but I had a great one coming up in 2008 to look forward to when I got an email from Denmark (the land of the normally behaving sun). I briefly mentioned this email as a post scrip to this post.

The email was asking about for some info about some Human League tracks I had played live in 1982. I provided the info and we got chatting a bit and Niels asked if I was going the see The Human League on their up and coming tour as they were playing the whole of Dare and it was generally anticipated that it would be a really god show.

I replied saying I couldn't make it, but that got me thinking that I would actually really like to see it. I checked the dates again and the closest one was in Sheffield but I was meant to be going to a barn dance that evening that had been arranged months before. I tentatively mentioned that I would quite like to go, but was firmly told that I couldn't as I already had arrangements for that evening. The next day I mentioned again that I wanted to go and was told "Ok we won't go to the barn dance so you can go".

I went straight onto the ticketmaster website and saw that tickets were still available. I requested 2 and came back saying my request could not be fulfilled. I tried putting in 1 and it came back with ticket A27 on the balcony. So there was only 1 ticket left. I could have bought that, but I would rather have gone with someone than on my own so I had a look on eBay.

I could tell a story of about 3 or 4 paragraphs about how I ended up getting the tickets, but I don't want this to be 2 long so we'll just skip to the fact that I managed to win 2 tickets in row F of the front stalls and my Dad had said he would like to come along so I also had someone to go with. Looking at he plan it looked like row F was on an angle at the side of the stalls, so I guessed we would be near the front, but with a side on view so we may not be able to see the whole stage.

As mentioned before, a few times, I have been compiling a list of all the gigs I have been to and have been creating events for them on last.fm. I found that someone had already created an event for this gig, but I didn't add my attendance until I had the tickets in hand, so as not to tempt fate (apparently fate doesn't like being tempted or something). Anyway, while surfing around I discovered that the support group was to be a band called Onetwo featuring Paul Humphreys, from OMD, and Claudia Brücken, from Propaganda.

I have to admit that I was never a big OMD fan. The only thing I ever bought of theirs was the cassette of Dazzle Ships and I only liked some of the songs on it. I should still have this cassette, as my cassette collection seems to be one of the few things I have from my youth that has survived.

However, I was a very big fan of Propaganda. I bought their first 2 albums (also on cassette, so I still have these) and used to play them a huge amount in the 1980s. I even went as far as tracking down a live recording of them, though I never got chance to see them live (and always regretted it). So the prospect of seeing Claudia Brücken play live got me really excited - I was going to be seeing 2 great bands on the same night.

The last time I saw the Human League was the last night of the Travelogue Tour. Shortly after that Martin Ware and Ian Craig marsh left and they were replaced by a couple of girls Phil Oakey had spotted in a nightclub. I carried on buying their singles until I heard Don't You Want Me. It seemed to me thay had suddenly become a pop band and I was no longer interested. I didn't buy Dare or anything they released since (although I haveto admit I did like some of the songs I heard them do on Top of the Pops over the following years).

So last week I bought a copy of Dare and loaded it into my iPod. The 2 songs I was dreading hearing were at the end of the album so I listened to it all apart from those 2 songs and was amazed at how good I thought it was. It wasn't really poopy at all and most of the songs were definatley in the same vein as the original Human League. So now I was even more excited about going.

So at last we get to the concert itself.

Our seats ended up not being at the side, but bang in the middle of the ninth row in the front stalls, so they couldn't really have been much better. The view was great.

There weren't many people in as we sat down, but just as we had got comfortable some people walked onto the stage and Onetwo started their set. I felt it was a bit of a shame that so few people were in, but as they played more and more people started arriving at their seats so the applause was getting more as their set went on. I was expecting the highlight of their set to be the Propaganda song Duel, but fantastic though that was it was their version of the Associates song Club Country that got the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Every breath you breathe belongs to someone there

It was simply amazing, just as good as if the Associates themselves were performing it. I had been lucky enough to see them in the 1980s and never thought I would hear any of their songs live again so it was really special to hear Onetwo perform such a great version of it. Duel was a close second though and was a great close to their set. I really hope I can see them live again. I bought their CD the gig and have been enjoying listening to it as I have been writing this.

After the interval the hall was bursting with people and suddenly some lights came on behind the Dare banner (shown above) and we could see the bands outlines as they went straight into The Things That Dreams Are Made Of. It was a fantastic opening to a gig and it never fell below that level for the whole evening. All the songs form Dare sounded better than the recorded versions and, dare I say it, even Don't You Want Me, sounded good last night. I took loads of photos, but most of them have come out blurred. The best of them can be seen here.

Being Boiled

I have to say that the stage set with its moving screens showing video images was one of the best I have seen to date and I even spotted a couple of Korg MS2000BR modules in the racks in the middle of the stage, which was good as I have one of those.

Some of the images on the screens were from the late 70s early 80s era and went really well with the songs. When Dare finished there was an instrumental song while Phil and the girls went off for a costume change and then they came back and performed loads more great songs. I really enjoyed them all but the one I was waiting for was Being Boiled and it was saved for one of the encores. When it came it was, for me, the highlight of the evening. The visuals were great and reminded me of the visuals they used to use when I saw them back in 1979 and 1980. The final song was Together in Electric Dreams and it was a great end to one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

If it hadn't been for that email from Denmark I would never have gone - so thanks Niels and I hope you enjoy the Copenhagen show as much as I enjoyed the Sheffield one.