Venue:
Adelaide Entertainment Centre – Theatre
Date: 18/02/2025
OMD are on their first tour here for 40 years. I last saw them about 6 or 7 years ago in DC.
It was a consummately professional show. The video backdrops allied to the music was really well done, if a little overwhelming to a tired brain.
And the performances? I honestly can’t pick anything that wasn’t good. It was a greatest hits show, so no need to ask for some old – they obliged, with the odd sprinkling from the more modern stuff.
I traveled about 950 miles to see them. I’d do it again in a heartbeat
The audience:
Oh boy.
I was at they younger end, apart from the younger folks who had come to see the support, Underground Lovers, who were excellent in their own right.
The sign about no moshing or crowd diving did make me think it was a bit redundant, given the average age of the audience. Frequently heard: “Oh yes, I saw them in 81” or “I saw them support Numan”, very often in expat accents.
The older folks were very well behaved. By which I mean no dicking about with phone cameras. The youngsters…I aspire to be mellow at shows, but they tested me.
It made me think..
The songwriting is great. The music is great. It’s a great show. They know why they’re there and what they’re supposed to be doing, and they deliver in spades.
It’s a 40+ year career, and based on the last few releases the quality is high. I’m never quite sure why they never get spoken about more.
Thanks for the review. Looking forward to the Auckland show next Thursday.
Don’t stand at the very front. I think you need to be well enough back to be able to see the video screens, otherwise some of the effect might be lost.
Thanks for the tip. Will bear that in mind.
I ordered a Dazzle Ships T shirt to wear at the gig which I designed myself on a website. It arrived today and it’s terrible. But it’s terrible in a good way (I think).
I can recommend Edward Wadsworth’s original painting of Dazzle Ships (1919), a print of which hangs in my room here at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle-ships_in_Drydock_at_Liverpool#/media/File:Dazzle-ships_in_Drydock_at_Liverpool.jpg
A “dazzle” is the collective noun for Zebras, fact fans!
I had no idea what a dazzle ship was. I do now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_ship_(14%E2%80%9318_NOW)#:~:text=Dazzle%20camouflage%20involved%20covering%20a,hit%20by%20torpedo%20or%20shell.
What a lot of interesting stuff you learn when you listen to OMD.
Enola Gay was another good example. Until i found out, I thought she was a character from Coronation Street.
Just for you
Thanks @Sitheref2409.
Another gem. Louise’s wiki page is a great read.
In Hollywood, I was a pretty flibbertigibbet whose charm for the executive department decreased with every increase in my fan mail. In Berlin I stepped to the station platform to meet Mr. Pabst and became an actress. And his attitude was the pattern for all. Nobody offered me humorous or instructive comments on my acting. Everywhere I was treated with a kind of decency and respect unknown to me in Hollywood. It was just as if Mr. Pabst had sat in on my whole life and career and knew exactly where I needed assurance and protection.[68]
Near the end of 1929, English film critic and journalist Cedric Belfrage interviewed Pabst for an article about Brooks’s film work in Europe that was published in the February 1930 issue of the American monthly Motion Picture.[74] According to Belfrage, Pabst attributed Brooks’s acting success outside the U.S. to her seemingly inherent or instinctive “European” sensibilities:
the eminent Herr Pabst described it to me over a cocktail in the Bristol Bar, Berlin. “Louise,'” said Herr Pabst, “has a European soul. You can’t get away from it. When she described Hollywood to me — I have never been there — I cry out against the absurd fate that ever put her there at all. She belongs to Europe and to Europeans. She has been a sensational hit in her German pictures. I do not have her play silly little cuties. She plays real women, and plays them marvelously.”[7
How will you look in the t shirt do you think @black-celebration?
No idea I reckon…
The design means I will be totally camouflaged – like a chameleon. This is great apart from people piddling up my back in the bogs.
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils are back!?
(Sorry I’m compelled to do this whenever I see OMD in print)
Never been away!
https://www.theozarkmountaindaredevils.com/tour
I always thought the Atlanta Rhythm Section was an injudicious acronym for a band name.
The Daredevils are rather decent.
They’ve been going for yonks and recorded their first album in the UK IN 1973.
https://www.theozarkmountaindaredevils.com/about
McCluskey and Humphreys’ first single was Electricity in 1979.
OMD AND OMD. What a great double bill that would be.
I have a song of theirs called Walking Down the Road that I’ve had on a well worn compilation tape since the mid 80s. I was delighted to find it on Spotify…
FFS.
That was an inspired one.
And what’s wrong with the Forfar Fiddle Society?
@vincent It was clever wasn’t it? Both bands are a bit too arch…
Four, five, six?
Fresh fruit salad?
Franz Ferdinand Sparks.
They recorded an album together. As clever as you’d hope.
Early fans of Undeground Lovers would be in their late 40s or early 50s by now, as their debut album was released in 1991.
I was introduced to their music in Oz in 1998, and came back with five of their CDs in my suitcase.
I’m just outside in the summer evening breeze with OMD due to come on in about 10 minutes.
I’ll do a review on here in a day or so.
Oh My Days!
The OMD concert in Auckland involved them being the main attraction of six-hour show featuring five acts performing sets that lasted roughly an hour. I had literally never heard of the first two, so I decided to pop home after work, get changed and walk the dog. I got to the venue to catch the last 10 minutes of Diesel and then I saw the entire set of Jon Stevens performing largely INXS numbers because (it says here) he was Michael Hutchence’s replacement for 3 years before the band decided to find a singer using the reality TV show route. His voice is strong and clear. Barrel-chested, throaty bellows very much on the Sweatin’ Stevens menu.
I was watching from the seats, looking down on the groundlings. When the opening chords of Never Tear us Apart came on, the crowd literally lit up – by which I mean lots of them raised their phones were raised to capture the moment on video. The effect is instant, informing you visually that the song must be a well-loved, famous one.
Stevens is a good singer, but the INXS hits were only part of his set. The rest was unknown to me but there were definitely fans in the audience who whooped and hollered to whatever those other songs were. A Bob Marley cover and extended bass guitar and drum solos indicated someone who needed to fill some space. Given the 80s nostalgia vibe of the day, I would counsel Jon to chuck in three more INXS bangers instead. If he had perhaps 6 big INXS hits back-to-back to end the set, he’d have won over the neutrals. As it was, the set meandered and finally ended in a T.S. Eliot stylee.
We didn’t have to wait long before Tom Bailey came out with his young band, all of them dressed in white. This was a good move, I thought. The band’s energy was infectious and happy. None of them old enough to be at the “it’s a shit business…” stage of their careers.
Tom Bailey plays many instruments and his voice is as clear as a bell. There’s something very orderly about his stuff, though. I can imagine him presenting the BBC show Rock School, where he educates viewers on various playing techniques. I think if you gave him a few grand to write a song about spoons, he’d be back an hour later with a really good pop song for you. This brisk efficiency is probably why I never really warmed to the ‘Twins. I think the lyrics are where he tends to fall down most of the time. I say “most of the time”because Hold Me Now is an undeniably Great Song and he should be very proud of that one. Otherwise, he attaches Stilgoe-esque lyrics to some very funky percussion but overall the effect is entertaining and I enjoyed the set.
He covered Psycho Killer very well, introducing it as “a song by some friends of mine from New York”.
Anyway, back to the lyrics. They had a surprise US hit with their song “King for a Day”. As they performed this very tuneful and clever song, I started to think about the words.
# IfI was King for just one day…I’d give it all away…just to be with you #
Very touching. Or is it? We’re only talking about being King for one day, here. I think his partner would really want him to enjoy the day and then tell her all about it tomorrow. If he said “No! I’m going to spend the day with you, instead” – I don’t think she’d like that at all.
Anyway – on to OMD. This is my 3rd time. I last saw them in 1983 on the Dazzle Ships tour, so it’s been a while. They appear to be in rude health and good humour, with Paul Humphreys celebrating his 65th birthday. Andy McCluskey said that they were last in Auckland in 1986 – supporting the Thompson Twins! He then warns “me dancin’ hasn’t got any better”. McCluskey looks very fit and healthy though – and very cheerful throughout. The venue wasn’t full by any means, but he performed like it was packed to the rafters. He worked up the, er, mosh pit into as much of a frenzy as on over-50s crowd can manage.
I was very pleased with the opener, Evolution of Species, from the new Bauhaus Staircase album. It’s the kind of song I love them for i.e. a weird electronic piece with industrial noises. They got that out of the way and then it was on to the hits “We are relentless!” McCluskey said at one point – it certainly felt like it. I had an early thought about McCluskey that distressed me a little – he now looks like a younger version of the newspaper editor and TV political presenter Andrew Neil.
They put on an excellent show. Highlights for me were History of Modern, which is a 21st century banger i.e. a “new one” and the Joan of Arc-themed brace of songs from Architecture and Morality.
OMD hit the US big time with If You Leave, which was used in Pretty in Pink. This mid-to-late 80s period spawned several similar-sounding songs and these were the spine of the set. Admittedly, these did get the crowd moving but I did think they could have given Andy a breather and played one of them grunty industrial ones, played really loud, because that’s an important side of OMD.
Enola Gay ended the show and this delivered a feeling of celebration and joy and smiling faces as we left. A great song is a great song. So go and see them if you can.
Re Tom Bailey: I recall an interview where he said most of his songwriting was computer generated, with, I guess, a rudimentary version of AI. Which might explain the lack of much in the way of any overt passion.