China Crisis 40th Anniversary Tour

Venue:

The Tuning Fork, Auckland

Date: 10/12/2022

On a summer Auckland evening, you may imagine the sun, hazy over a deep blue sea. You may imagine yourself comfortably seated in a wide open grassy landscape with a glass of wine, a small picnic perhaps, with half-closed eyes, nodding your head appreciatively to the floaty melodies of China Crisis. The gentle, lilting music seems to beckon and then welcome the gradual appearance of stars in the darkening sky above.

But actually it pissed down. And China Crisis were playing in an indoor venue.

Meanwhile, the hapless thousands that turned up to see Guns n Roses across town at Eden Park found themselves soaked to the skin by the time Axl screeched his first screech. Opening remarks from Eddie Lundon thank us for NOT going to see Guns n Roses (as if this was a genuine dilemma faced by anyone at a China Crisis gig).

This was the first of many moments of comedy as the evening went on. A China Crisis gig is not just the music, a large part of the show is Gary Daly’s talent as a storyteller. This is a talent he shares with Neil Finn – a real bonus because this is rare among performers of pop music. For Gary, this may be 80% blessing and 20% curse, but I will expand on that later.

They open with Soul Awakening (which is now pluralised for some reason). This is a sparsely arranged, slower number and an unusual way to start a greatest hits set. Gary explains that they do this to be absolutely sure the lights and sound levels are right early doors. This is not the full band – no live drums or bass. They are joined onstage by a keyboard player (who also has a laptop on the go) and a very accomplished oboe/saxophone player.

Gary talks profanely about the early days and is withering and savage about the bands that were around at the time, particularly the Liverpool-based acts. He says he also loves them and I know what he means. It’s a sibling-like relationship where you might annoy the shit out of each other, but you love them all the same.

I prick up my ears when he dishes out some treatment to Depeche Mode. This gets a negative reaction from some of the crowd, which Gary responds to with theatrical astonishment “Depeche Mode? Come on…really? They’ll never come here y’know…you don’t make them enough money!” He then gives them a bit of a duffing up verbally in case we are left in any doubt. He pauses and says “Now…having said all that…(solemnly) this next song is devoted to our dear friend Fletch.” The comic timing is impeccable.

That song is the brilliant (deep breath) Some People I Know to Lead Fantastic Lives. We are asked to listen out for a Depeche Mode reference, which comes at the end when the song morphs into Just Can’t Get Enough. As you can tell by now, they have a lot of fun onstage and ridicule themselves just as much they do others.

Jeremy Paxman writes – “Oh come on! I know you like them…but I’m not here to read a fawning, creepy-crawly-bum-lick of a gig review! I expect better!”. You’re right, Jeremy – thanks for getting in touch. I do have some other thoughts.

The show was peppered with sound and lighting problems, which I guess might be more of a venue problem, but then some crucial parts of songs were missing. Most notably the all-important bass line to African and White. It should be so deep and loud that your internal organs run for their lives but I could barely hear it. Imagine U2’s With or Without You with the bass line removed. It’s still OK, but a key musical element is lost.

The next observation I have is slightly more tricky to explain. After a triumphant Wishful Thinking, Gary had a bit of a moment – and looked visibly shaken and upset. For a minute, I thought the gig was over. From what I could tell, someone in the audience near to the stage had been heckling Gary and then said something that crossed a line. Eddie’s kind intervention and pep talk to Gary got the show back on track.

Composure regained, Gary told us that he can’t do his thing with people shouting back at him all night. And this is the cursed side of his talent I mentioned earlier. The way he tells stories is very conversational and he makes you feel like he’s inviting a response. The lesser-spotted Fuckwit, who is present at every gig, isn’t bright enough to know that the performers should not be distracted or interrupted. Now this may break a few hearts, but Gary’s anecdotes are just as scripted and planned as the songs. The stories sound spontaneous and off the cuff because Gary very good at it. Perhaps in future he needs to be really clear at the beginning because fuckwits are very, very stupid people.

The songs were strong enough to withstand this kind of headwind though we rattled through Black Man Ray, Working with Fire and Steel and King in a Catholic Style, which really did get the joint jumping.

Don’t get me wrong and I’m not being funny or nothing, but the China Crisis you get on the records is a different China Crisis to the one you see live. The almost haughty precision of Gary’s annunciation on record is not there at all in a live setting.

As we moved to the slow and delicate Christian, I reflected that this is now being performed by a 60 year old grandfather of three who is 100 times more comfortable in his skin than he was 40 years ago. As a frail, fey, painfully thin young teenager I fully identified with the recently-broken voice that nervously delivered Christian on Top of the Pops, barely making eye contact with the camera. Now that we are in 2022, he belts it out to the gallery with arms akimbo -even the whispered “Christian” near the end is given both barrels like Lily Savage in panto. Meanwhile, a waterlogged and squelchy Axl Rose is pretending to be 25/and trying to screech like he does on the records.

True to form, they round things off entertainingly by telling us that they are going to pretend to do a “last song” but they WILL do one more and they’ll do it straight after, so we don’t need to shout for an encore or anything like that.

These days, they clearly think it’s fun to entertain – and they certainly do. Even if you only know a couple of songs, it’s a good night out.

The audience:

The crowd were, unsurprisingly, in their 50s/60s and quite a few women. They seemed to be largely kiwi, which surprised me. They were quite popular in NZ and there still seems be enough of a following to make it worth their while to come here.

It made me think..

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