HEAVEN 17’s strength as performers is that they are great fun.
It was the conclusion of their UK tour for ‘The Luxury Gap’ at Shepherd’s Bush Empire having premiered it during last year’s BEF Weekender at The Roundhouse. The vibrant chemistry between its central vocal axis of Glenn Gregory, Martyn Ware and Billie Godfrey was very apparent and a pleasure to witness.
While the social commentary of HEAVEN 17’s music has always had serious intent and is as relevant now as it was in 1983, the message has always been delivered with a sense of humour and irony. As a result, HEAVEN 17 gigs have never been dour affairs. Of course, ‘The Luxury Gap’ was the album that launched HEAVEN 17 into the mainstream after a period as cult heroes with their debut ‘Penthouse & Pavement’.
They even ended up appearing on the same edition of Top Of The Pops as their old sparring partners THE HUMAN LEAGUE… the tensions between the two acts respective architects Martyn Ware and Phil Oakey have been well documented but in Spring 1983, ‘Temptation’ and ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’ were both in the Top 5 and the pop promise of the original Sheffield synth pioneers who formed in 1978 was now gallantly fulfilled.
The singles such as ‘Let Me Go’, ‘Crushed By the Wheels Of Industry’ and ‘Come Live With Me’ are regular staples of the H17 live set but it was the opportunity to hear material such as ‘Who’ll Stop the Rain’ and ‘We Live So Fast’ that made this evening such as joyful experience. The orchestrated ballad ‘The Best Kept Secret’ held the crowd’s attention despite the absence of beats while ‘Lady Ice & Mr Hex’, a weird fusion of jazz piano, polyrhythmics, Linn Drum and acid squelches was this section’s highlight.
Inevitably, ‘Temptation’ was still a scene stealer despite being programmed comparatively early into the proceedings although an extended BROTHERS IN RHYTHM styled reprise as an encore helped close the evening with the appropriate euphoric climax…“dime in the hot slot” and all that!
With notable session musicians such as Ray Russell, John Wilson, Simon Phillips and Nick Plytas playing on the original album, HEAVEN 17 sidemen (and woman) Asa Bennett, Julian Crampton, Al Anderson and Berenice Scott all marvellously replicated these parts and more in this retrospective setting. The band was complimented with the addition of Kelly Barnes on extra backing vocals, who with Billie Godfrey and Berenice Scott, provided a glamourous distraction stage right as Messrs Ware and Gregory did their double act on the left.
To bolster the remainder of the show, there were also various highlights from HEAVEN 17’s career like ‘We’re Going To Live For A Very Long Time’, ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, a danced up ‘Geisha Boys & Temple Girls’, ‘I’m Your Money’ and ‘Fascist Groove Thang’.
There’s very much an understanding between Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory that the earlier electronic material is performed, not for nostalgic reasons but because it is their best. However, in the absence of new material, the occasion also acted as a platform for the “medium of reinterpretation” with charismatic performances of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Crow & A Baby’ and ‘Being Boiled’.
Who would have thought that two songs Martyn Ware co-wrote with Phil Oakey and Ian Craig Marsh respectively about teenage pregnancy and silk worms roasted alive in the name of fashion would go down so well on a Saturday night? “From when THE HUMAN LEAGUE were good” remarked Ware cheekily on the conclusion of ‘Crow & A Baby’. “You can’t say that!” retorted Gregory before launching into his now almost inevitable acoustic rendition of ‘Don’t You Want Me’ and amusingly forgetting the words in the process!
There was also a cover of Da League’s cover of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ where Martyn Ware left his Roland V-Synth GT to join Glenn Gregory as part of a new vocal duo THE RIGHT-ON BROTHERS, and a slowed down waltz tribute to the late Billy MacKenzie with ‘Party Fears Two’, ASSOCIATES’ heartfelt paean to the pain of schizophrenia. They may not have new songs but HEAVEN 17 certainly take risks with their live sets, unlike several of their Synth Britannia contemporaries.
It was a memorable and enjoyable time for everyone concerned. The banter between band members with the audience made for an entertaining show. But what next for the future artistic endeavours of HEAVEN 17? Is a live showcase of the Fairlighted jamboree of third album ‘How Men Are’ next in line? Nowhere near as consistent as either ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ or ‘The Luxury Gap’, it would be a brave move.
And looking ahead, even the most hardened HEAVEN 17 fan is unlikely to be waiting for the concert debut of ‘Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho’!! So instead, here’s another question to end… is Berenice Scott possibly the sexiest lady ever to have got behind a synthesizer?
With thanks to Rosie Johnstone and Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR
‘The Luxury Gap’ 2CD+DVD box set is available now via Virgin/EMI Records
‘Naked As Advertised’ featuring HEAVEN 17’s versions of ‘Party Fears Two’, ‘Being Boiled’ and ‘Empire State Human’ plus 2008 versions of their best known songs is released by Absolute Zero
HEAVEN 17’s German tour for ‘The Luxury Gap’ includes:
Aschaffenburg Colos-Saal (10th December), Hamburg Fabrik (11th December), Berlin C-Club (12th December), Köln Live Music Hall (13th December), Leipzig Anker (14th December)
HEAVEN 17 will be touring their platinum selling second album ‘The Luxury Gap’ this Autumn.
Featuring their classic hits ‘Come Live With Me’, ‘Let Me Go’, ‘Crushed By The Wheels of Industry’ and ‘Temptation’, the album’s resonant social commentary is wholly fitting in the current economic climate. Back in 1983 when the album was released, Glenn Gregory, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh flew the red flag for the Socialist Republic of Yorkshire with their witty observations of the greed and yuppie culture in the Thatcher era.
Perhaps more obviously pop oriented than its predecessor ‘Penthouse and Pavement’, ‘The Luxury Gap’ had a glossy sheen which combined synthesizer programming and digital drum computers with orchestrations, brass, jazz piano, rhythm guitar and paving slabs.
Glenn Gregory, who had been working as a photographer in London, was recruited into HEAVEN 17 following the split of THE HUMAN LEAGUE Mk1 in 1980. While Phil Oakey found two girls “in a cocktail bar”, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION (BEF), a production company along the lines of THE CHIC ORGANISATION to best utilise their talents.
Among their first projects were the instrumental ‘Music For Stowaways’ cassette and the ambitious covers album ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol 1’. Although he was partly involved in both, Gregory became lead singer for what was to be BEF’s pop outfit, influenced by the soul funk fusion of THE JACKSONS as well as the electronic music technology that had now become more affordable and user friendly.
‘Penthouse and Pavement’ was a critical success with steadily increasing sales but with the mainstream appeal of ‘The Luxury Gap’, HEAVEN 17 eventually took priority over BEF.
Photo by Gered Mankowitz
The period between 1981-84 is often considered to be HEAVEN 17’s imperial phase but during this period, they didn’t actually perform live, save a few live vocal / playback appearances in clubs for promotional purposes.
Having successfully toured ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ in 2010 to great acclaim, it is now the turn of ‘The Luxury Gap’.
Glenn Gregory spoke about this classic album and also why HEAVEN 17 keep performing songs from the early phase of THE HUMAN LEAGUE like ‘Being Boiled’ and ‘The Black Hit Of Space’ in their live set…
There’s a 2CD/DVD box set of ‘The Luxury Gap’ about to be released– what can fans expect in terms of rarities?
We’ve dug around and there’s three tracks from ‘Night Of The Proms’ we’ve put on. That’s amazing because it’s a full orchestra and 75 piece choir. There are the extended remixes BUT we did forget to include the original demo of ‘Temptation’!!! *laughs*
That’s a shame because moving from that KRAFTWERK meets SOFT CELL demo to the electro-soul fusion…that’s quite a transformation?
Yes, quite a lot of our early demos were much more electronic and we were writing with similar equipment to THE HUMAN LEAGUE. It’s only afterwards when we went into the studio that we started to experiment and change the way we were conceiving and perceiving the songs.
For instance, it took us a long time to find a girl for ‘Temptation’. Martyn had the idea for the Motown backbeat but it’s still very electronic really… there was this part that built and we decided to try an orchestra. So we were in the studio with this massive orchestra and it was like “oh my god”, it was amazing because it was so different. It was a complete game changer.
Rusty Egan found us Carol Kenyon; we tried a couple of people including Josie James who sang on ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, but she was too soft, it wasn’t ballsy enough. So I phoned him up and explained what we needed and he went: “I GOT JUST THE GIRL FOR YA GLENN, COME DOWN THE WAG CLUB!” so that was it! He introduced us to Carol so big thanks to Rusty on that one *laughs*
What inspired ‘Come Live With Me’?
I was at that time I wrote it, seeing a young girl and I was getting a few jibes like “what time do you pick her up from school?”…it was half past three actually! *laughs*
So there was this “she’s half your age” thing and all that kind of stuff but it started to be about word play. “I was thirty seven – you were seventeen – you were half my age – the youth I’d never seen”… the words were making us laugh! It was all messing around! That’s where it all came from and we were quite surprised we’d written quite a beautiful song by the end of it because we were laughing like mad.
We did this cancer charity gig with John Shuttleworth at the Bloomsbury Theatre and there was a version of one of his comedy songs ‘Dandelion of Burdock’ which I did in the style of ‘Vienna’… it was a showstopper! But we did ‘Come Live With Me’ as well and John was on with us… as the lyrics went: “I was thirty seven – you were seventeen”, he replied: “Well, I don’t know if I approve of that!” That was fun. *laughs*
Photo by Tracey Welch
You and Martyn have always maintained that ‘Let Me Go’ is your favourite H17 song. It had that TB303 Bassline which was very innovative at the time…
It changed so much from the demo and we wrote it in my flat on a TEAC 4 track. We had a tiny Yamaha keyboard and we came up with that melody which was almost film soundtracky. It was beautiful but as the song steadily got bigger, it went through a whole heap of changes. But we kept the TB303 Bassline. It needed some balls so we put bass guitar on it but it didn’t work. Then we added these low piano notes like ‘Vienna’ and that didn’t work!
But then Martyn made this “wowww” sound on the Jupiter 8 with the delay, that was great and the start of it with the drums, that was me actually playing real drums. We got these toms in and I did this big Phil Collins fill. I did it twice and they all went “yeah, that’s brilliant” but I went “I wanna do it more! I’m enjoying this!”
When we finished ‘Let Me Go’, we realised we’d lost the original beauty of the demo so we did it again… so basically, ‘The Best Kept Secret’ is ‘Let Me Go’ but redone with an orchestra. So we got two songs out of it. It took a lot out of us but it gave us so much more back. We really do love that track, it’s a great song to sing. It’s very emotional and it’s great for my range, I can really belt it out. It gives a lot back that song.
You’ve talked about seeing ULTRAVOX play The Roundhouse and how vibrant the show was – did you draw inspiration from that when you put together the HEAVEN 17 / BEF weekend and debuted ‘The Luxury Gap’ live there?
Yes, that is absolutely true… Midge invited me and Martyn down. I had never actually been to The Roundhouse before and I went not knowing what to expect from a revamped ULTRAVOX or The Roundhouse and how the sound would be. But I was absolutely blown away by the artistry and sincerity of ULTRAVOX and the audience were amazing. They didn’t milk anything or act like ‘comeback kids’… to me, it was like watching THE KILLERS! I thought “this is an amazing place”, it was like a happening. I felt privileged to be there and that’s what put the idea in my head. And then Peter Price at William Morris Agency suggested doing the weekender with BEF thing which Midge loved the idea of.
Photo by Gered Mankowitz
That weekend must have been quite tricky to co-ordinate with all those high profile artists making an appearance?
That was just so much work to pull all that together. We got people to say yes and to turn up at odd times for rehearsals. But we hadn’t really thought about the night itself. So there was all these people singing and we realised we’d need a stage manager! So Martyn got this mate who worked at the Royal Opera House who does that. She made the backstage bit run really smoothly. At the end of the weekend, I needed four nights off!
Any tense moments for you or did you just let Martyn sweat it out alone?
Yeah, I was just helping it run smoothly and telling everyone they were going to be alright! *laughs*
What are you singing on the new BEF ‘Dark’ album incidentally?
I’m singing ‘It Was A Very Good Year’ which was made famous by Frank Sinatra. Martyn has scored it, but using just System 100 and synths so it’s really odd and weird. He’s done a really good job of it. It’s slow and lumbering but quite obviously, dark as well *laughs*
So what’s the format for the upcoming tour – you’ll be playing ‘The Luxury Gap’ again – can we expect any surprises… more HUMAN LEAGUE songs?
It’s funny because it’s me that pushes that HUMAN LEAGUE thing and I love that early stuff. I was a massive fan even though I knew them all. I must confess that yes, I have programmed up a few more things already… I’ve been on at Phil Oakey every time I see him saying: “Please Phil; you, Martyn and Ian… go and do the first two albums, just do it once”. But he won’t have it! I would have my ticket and be at the front weeks in advance…
You and Claudia Brücken were in The Independent recently about how you both met and she’s was saying you should do new material…is there a chance of a new HEAVEN 17 album – how are the odds looking today with regards to going back into the studio?
We’ve got to take a different view of it and have a different head on… it’s partly me, and Martyn as well. We could easily write a couple of tracks, sing them and put them out…that’s fine but there’s something in us that thinks “if we’re going to do it, we would want to do it really well” and that might mean using an orchestra or working with other people. It’s going to take more effort. BUT it doesn’t have to be that, we could just do it. For instance, I did the track for John Shuttleworth in about 3-4 days and it’s sounded great, Martyn said it was “awesome”…and I was just messing about really! I’m kind of coming round – Claudia’s winning I think… she’s always going on at me *laughs*
How was performing with Claudia Brücken at The Scala and Bush Hall?
It was great, Claudia and I just keep ending up working together. It’s always an absolute pleasure. She’s a lovely person and we get on well. I take the p*ss out of her because she’s German and she doesn’t understand so it’s great for me. *laughs*
You did ‘When Your Heart Runs Out of Time’ live with her. The original recording you did for ZTT was produced by Midge Ure under the alias Otto Flake Junior, have you any interesting memories of that?
The hilarity of that is, for this German TV documentary Midge and I did, I invited Claudia down to the studio so that we could do ‘When Your Heart Runs Out of Time’. So Midge said: “ok, can you send it to me?”. So I sent it to him and we were talking…he did not remember doing it!! He has no memory of it at all! Claudia was saying “Midge, we were in your studio!”; “Which studio?” Midge replied… Claudia goes: “In Chiswick” ! He had no idea, it was hilarious! *laughs*
Paul Morley got the gig for the ‘Insignificance’ film and had the idea of putting me and Claudia together to do this Country and Western track written by Will Jennings. It’s at the end of the film, it was just a very funny thing to do. The video for it was hilarious; Paul said “The premiere’s tonight in Haymarket, why don’t we get Claudia in a white dress all Marilyn Munroe-esque, you get your suit on and we just film you lip-synching to the song as people are leaving”.
Claudia was going: “Oh Paul, I cannot do that!”… so I gave Claudia some vodka! And gave her some more! So people would literally have just come out of the cinema as we were performing it! If you look at it on the video, I’ve got hold of her wrist really tightly, it looks like a love thing but it’s not, it’s to stop her running away! *laughs*
So this ‘Durch Die Nacht (Into the Night)’ documentary for German TV with Midge Ure…how did that come about? It looked a fun night!
It was a lot of fun, Hasko Baumann, the director, contacted Midge about it. The concept is they arrive at your house and follow you… they don’t say anything or interfere. When I read about it in the email, I thought: “What? How does that work?” So there’s two crews, one with you and one on location plus cameras in the car. They just put two people together, film them and make an hour programme out of it. We filmed from 5.30pm until 12.45am constantly with me and Midge ranting about the state of play! *laughs*
Midge was also on the first BEF album as part of THE NANCY BOYS doing backing vocals on the Paula Yates sung track ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’…
…yes, it was me, Martyn, Midge and Bob Geldof… THE NANCY BOYS! *laughs*
You also did backing vocals on ‘The Gift’ track ‘Antilles’ and you co-wrote ‘Personal Heaven’ with Midge for X-PERIENCE which was a hit in Germany. Any chance of you doing you more work with him?
Yeah, it’s funny, I said that to him the other day. We get on really well and we’re good friends. When he came round, I was playing ‘Wild Is The Wind’ on guitar and he said he loved it, we like the same things. So I said “You know what? We should just do something together”. Instead of half a day’s work, we should really consider doing something together… I think people would be interested. It’s never really occurred to us, we’re just friends outside of music really.
I’ll tell you a funny story about Midge… I was in Cornwall with my wife and parents. We were sitting in this bar and this girl walks past with a small girl and a guy; I thought “that looks like Sheridan (Midge’s wife) and that could be Midge… hang on, it is Midge!!”. So I shouted “MIDGE!” but he just ignored me! So I thought: “that can’t be Midge” but my parents went: “go and ask… he might be deaf”. So I ran after him! I went “MIDGE” and he turned round and saw me and went: “F***ing hell, I thought you were just some nutcase shouting my name!” I said: “I AM!”*roars of laughter*
There’s a book due out shortly by David Buckley called ‘Electric Dreams: The Human League, Heaven 17 and the Sound of the Steel City’. Are you involved in this?
I’ve done a couple of interviews for it, but there’s been a few delays for various reasons.
With all the recent HEAVEN 17 activity of the last few years, do you miss Ian Craig Marsh being around at all?
We are still really close… I say “are” even though we’ve not spoken to him for several years. He just very slowly stopped being in contact with Martyn first, then me. And then Lindsay, my wife who was always the one who could get him to answer, he stopped with her too. He then just totally disappeared.
And when we started to do stuff again, we emailed him and asked if he would like to be involved… we didn’t hear back, so we asked again… nothing. Then we said “If we don’t hear back, we’re just going to do it anyway and presume that you don’t want to do it”. But I still feel completely the same about him, although he’s never explained why he went. Y’know, there’s still all the love there and he’s a brother but it’s weird, we’re all Facebook friends! *laughs*
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Glenn Gregory
Special thanks to Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR
The double CD+DVD box set of ‘The Luxury Gap’ is released on 22nd October 2012 by Virgin/EMI Records
‘The Luxury Gap’ UK and German 2012 Tour includes:
Liverpool 02 Academy (23rd October) , Glasgow 02 Academy (24th October), Newcastle 02 Academy (26th October), Sheffield 02 Academy (27th October), Birmingham 02 Academy (29th October), Bristol 02 Academy (Tue 30th October), Aschaffenburg Colos-Saal (10th December), Hamburg Fabrik (11th December), Berlin C-Club (12th December), Köln Live Music Hall (13th December), Leipzig Anker (14th December)
Claudia Brücken’s ‘This Time’ career celebration at The Scala in London was without doubt, one of the best live presentations of 2011.
On this wonderful evening, the first lady of cinematic electronic pop was joined by some very special guests in Erasure’s Andy Bell, Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware, Ralf Dörper and Susanne Freytag from Propaganda and one time ZTT label mate Andrew Poppy for an unforgettable and almost certainly unrepeatable concert. The superb event has been captured as a DVD film and accompanying CD soundtrack entitled ‘This Happened’.
This is the perfect souvenir for those who were there (and those who wished they were there). It captures all the warmth of appreciation from that evening when Claudia performed a selection of songs from her career accompanied by a superb backing band led by ONETWO partner and musical director Paul Humphreys.
Featuring Philip Larsen, James Watson, Dawne Adams, Sam Sallon, Melissa D’Arcy and Dave Watson, the company delightfully tackled a catalogue songs made famous by Claudia as a member of Propaganda, Act, Onetwo and as a solo artist. There are many highlights to savour including a exceptionally groovy ‘Absolut(E)’, playful duets with Glenn Gregory and Andy Bell, the Bond theme meets Massive Attack chic of new song ‘Thank You’, the three quarters reunion of PROPAGANDA and the surprise inclusion of ‘Dream Within A Dream’ from their highly regarded album ‘A Secret Wish’.
But that’s not all. To celebrate the release of ‘This Happened’, Claudia Brücken will also be playing a new version of the show, ‘This Time Too’ at London’s Bush Hall on Thursday 19th July 2012 featuring OMD’s Andy McCluskey as one of the special guests.
Taking a break from preparing for this upcoming performance, Claudia Brücken and Paul Humphreys kindly invited ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to their London studio to talk about the live DVD and reminisce about that wonderful evening at The Scala last March.
It was an amazing night at The Scala, how do you look back on it?
Claudia: It was a complete success, it was great to have all the people, who I have collaborated with, agree to perform with me. It was quite a difficult task to get all of the musicians together and to organise it all.
Paul: Getting everyone to rehearse on the same day was a nightmare.
Claudia: Everybody was individually rehearsed. We told everyone what parts they were doing so they were all well prepared and then we did two days rehearsal…
Paul: …that was mainly for the band really as we were playing a whole load of songs we had never played before. *laughs*
Which songs were the most challenging to reproduce in a live situation?
Paul: ‘Dream Within A Dream’ was probably the toughest because it’s such a complex piece, there’s all these solos and Dawne our percussionist had all these things to do, there were different cues and all the bar counts are changing all the time! To be honest, we never got ‘Dream Within A Dream’ right in rehearsals; the only time we got it right was live on stage at the Scala. On stage, we were all just secretly nodding at each other!
I remember all the gasps of excitement from the audience when Susanne uttered those first few words…
Paul: Yes, you can hear it on the mikes when I mixed it!
Claudia: That was a little personal challenge; it’s such a great Propaganda piece. As Susanne was there as a guest, I really wanted to put that song out there in a live context.
Paul: All the chords are very complex and we had to get in our mate Sam who hadn’t played flugelhorn since he was a kid. So he bought one and he spent two weeks rehearsing…but he did really well *laughs*
The setlist was very well paced and as good as perfect. How did you decide what to perform?
Paul: We played the obvious ones from the ‘ComBined’ album as it was a celebration based around that.
Claudia: Also through Onetwo, we had so many songs already rehearsed. It was just a matter of organising everyone. So it became obvious when we had Glenn as a guest that we do ‘Snobbery & Decay’ and ‘When Your Heart Runs Out Of Time’. ‘When Your Heart Runs Out Of Time’ was pure self-indulgence because we’d never done it before. We thought we might as well do it.
Paul: We completely reworked it, it’s nothing like the original; we did a very electro version.
Claudia: Then Glenn and Martyn remembered they had done an electro version of ‘Temptation’ which was a demo…
Paul: …apparently that was the demo which got HEAVEN 17 their deal. And they had a German singer actually talk it before they reworked it with all the high vocals and the strings.
Claudia: I had this demo as a template and I really like that almost detached attitude so I thought that’s a good way to go with the idea.
Paul: But the biggest challenge for Claudia was ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘In Dreams’ with Andrew Poppy because you’re so exposed and any slight mistake, it really stands out.
Claudia: It was quite daring because most people attending the show, their background is electronic music so for me to just come out and bring it right down to just piano and voice…I really liked it for a change of scene. I did a show with Andrew Poppy the other day for his new album ‘Shiny Floor, Shiny Ceiling’. We did a couple of performances at the Chelsea Arts Centre. He’s very clever and such an artist, he’s got his own ideas and he sees it through.
Paul: It was an amazing show.
Were there any songs that you considered, but discounted for various reasons?
Claudia: I would have liked to have played more from ‘Love: And A Million Other Things’ like ‘Baby Sign’ or ‘Love: In Another World’ but there was just so much to choose from.
The crowd particularly enjoyed the three quarters reunion of PROPAGANDA…
Claudia: It was great, I’ve always wanted to do it. I’ve been working towards the possibility of trying to get PROPGANDA on the road again and there’s always been hurdles, it’s never been easy! Everything else with ONETWO and the band has always been very easy and pleasurable.
So when Susanne and Ralf agreed to join me, it was the closest at that point of getting those Propaganda songs back up live. I’m someone who doesn’t give up easily and I try different ways to make something happen. I’ve known them for such a long time and it just kind of fell into place.
Is it true Ralf never played live with PROPGANDA first time round when you were on ZTT?
Claudia: That’s right, he was working as a banker and couldn’t get time off. The first time was the Trevor Horn Wembley concert in 2004. Wow! That was a bit of a band wasn’t it? *laughs*
Yes, I’ve seen the video clip of that! Stephen Lipson, Lol Creme, Anne Dudley, Geoff Downes, David Palmer AND an orchestra!
Paul: Now that’s what I call a band! *laughs*
Claudia: A band, Trevor Horn style! *laughs*
There’s an obvious onstage chemistry between you and Glenn Gregory, what do you put that down to?
Claudia and Paul: Mates! *laughter*
Claudia: But we genuinely love each other as well, I’ve known him since the ‘Dr Mabuse’ video shoot which his first wife Sarah did the make-up for. One of my earliest memories about England was going to Glenn’s old house in Notting Hill…I was discussing make-up and stuff with Sarah and there were Heaven 17 sitting on a couch in a darkly lit room. We just became really good friends and went through a lot of things together on ZTT as Trevor Horn used to use him as a session singer a lot on recordings by Grace Jones and stuff.
We’ve already mentioned Andrew Poppy but you couldn’t have had a more polar opposite guest than the other Andrew, Mr Bell?
Claudia: I did some gigs with Andy Bell back in 2005 at Madame Jo-Jo’s and Koko, it was just so natural.
Paul: Again, we’re mates with Andy, we’ve been on holiday with Andy too. He’s a sweetheart. We adore him.
Susanne almost didn’t make it on stage in time for ‘Light The Way’. How did you make sure the evening ran like clockwork while still being able to vibe off the special occasion?
Paul: It was funny while mixing the sound for the DVD and album, all the way through the intro of ‘Light The Way’, Claudia’s going: “Where’s Susanne? Where’s Susanne?”…we didn’t have a stage manager! *laughs*
Claudia: We forgot actually about that didn’t we!! *laughs*
Paul: We relied on everyone to remember their cue, I posted a sheet up in the dressing room! There’s only one dressing room at The Scala and it’s tiny…there were fifteen of us!!
Claudia: All these men dressed in black standing there, it was like a Magritte painting *laughs*
Paul: There were three chairs, all for the girls of course.
Claudia: It was very funny!
How was it trying to fix situations like when Susanne’s microphone cut out during ‘Dr Mabuse’ in the final audio mix? Is it a matter of retrieving sections of the recording or overdubbing?
Paul: It was actually there. It went to record, but our soundman Chicky had it muted on the desk! He had so many cues to remember that he forgot that one! *laughs*
Claudia: It was a bit “let’s see what happens” as well. There was so much information for him there.
With so many people involved, was it a matter of tying it all together during the soundcheck? Martyn Ware mentioned to me it had been a long day.
Claudia: We did have a soundcheck but there were a few technical hiccups which no-one could foresee. At 6.45pm, I said to Paul: “Shouldn’t we be hearing a sound of some sort by now?”
Paul: I was trying to keep Claudia calm and saying “Don’t worry, everything is fine” but knowing that it really wasn’t! What happened was James from the band’s laptop blew up and he didn’t have a back-up….all his virtual instruments were on there. So he was programming all these different sounds on another keyboard that he had using his headphones! But also at The Scala, we had so many lines, mikes and inputs that the stage box wasn’t good enough. You have to split it to monitor desk and front of house but with their box, you could have one or the other, but not both! So I had to hire one really quickly and get it delivered. But I didn’t tell Claudia this! *laughs*
How does the finished DVD look and will it satisfy those fans who there, and also those were unable to make it to the gig?
Paul: It’s fantastic!
Claudia: It’s been a real labour of love, it’s taken us so long to make. We get asked to play Canada, Russia, Finland and the USA but we can’t tour everywhere, it’s not so simple.
So I wanted there to be a documentation of what I’m like live so I hope they like it. We put a lot of love into it… it’s 100% and more to make this an entertaining piece of work.
Is it in 5.1 surround sound?
Paul: It’s not actually, so many people I know don’t have 5.1, so I didn’t think it was necessary. Plus it would have made it far more expensive to make because I mixed it in my own studio, and I don’t have a 5.1 system in here. I’m happy with stereo and most people will enjoy it stereo. In 5.1 you’ve got mix everything twice as you have to do a stereo mix anyway, those balances are completely different. It took a long time to just to mix 98 minutes of music in stereo.
You have ‘This Time Too’ at Bush Hall coming up on 19th July as a follow on event. This time you have another Andrew, ie Mr McCluskey as a guest. What song will he be performing with you?
Claudia: He’s doing ‘Absolutely Immune’ in place of Andy Bell…
Paul: …but instead of ‘Delicious’, we’ll be doing something else which Claudia and Andy will sing as a duet.
Would it ever be a possibility for you to go out with a touring version of this show in Europe, albeit maybe without all the wonderful guests?
Claudia: If I did it, it would make sense for everyone else to join us…anything is possible.
But if they did come on tour with me, I would want them to show more of themselves. I couldn’t ask them to sing just one song…
Paul: Hopefully, Claudia will be touring to promote her new solo album and she will playing some of these songs in the show so it will kind of be happening…
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Claudia Brücken and Paul Humphreys
The DVD+CD set ‘This Happened’ is released on 23rd July 2012 via There(there).
The tracklisting is:
1 Kiss Like Ether
2 Sequentia
3 Dr. Mabuse – with Susanne Freytag and Ralf Dörper
4 Absolut[e]
5 Cloud 9
6 Snobbery & Decay – with Glenn Gregory
7 Temptation – with Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware
8 When Your Heart Runs Out of Time – with Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware
9 Running Up That Hill – with Andrew Poppy
10 In Dreams – with Andrew Poppy
11 Dream Within A Dream – with Susanne Freytag and Ralf Dörper
12 p:Machinery – with Susanne Freytag and Ralf Dörper
13 Night School
14 Light The Way
15 Home (Tonight)
16 Delicious – with Andy Bell
17 Absolutely Immune – with Andy Bell
18 Duel – with Susanne Freytag
19 Thank You
It was a year which saw classic and new stand side-by-side as comrades in arms for the synthesizer. In possibly the event of the year, April’s ‘Back To The Phuture - Tomorrow Is Today’ at London’s Troxy saw godfathers Gary Numan and John Foxx supported by the best new UK synthpop act for many years, MIRRORS.
The Brighton quartet reappeared in the summer over on the South Bank when the Vintage Festival Electronic Phuture Revue gave us a celebration of synthpop cool with performances by ONETWO, RECOIL, HEAVEN 17 and Thomas Dolby. Speaking of the latter, they premiered ‘The Luxury Gap’ at The Roundhouse in 3D sound no less while their production alter-ego BEF presented ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Live’.
Meanwhile, Mute Records celebrated their influential legacy with a weekender also at London’s Roundhouse featuring ERASURE, YAZOO and THE ASSEMBLY in the same set, plus acts such as RECOIL, NITZER EBB and LAIBACH. With an electro documentary weekend before Easter on the Sky Arts TV channel featuring Gary Numan, DURAN DURAN, NEW ORDER, Jean-Michel Jarre and the late Rorbert Moog electronic music’s cultural legacy was being recognised the world over.
Indeed, Gary Numan’s Inspiration Award from Mojo magazine finally acknowledged those trailblazing Synth Britannia years. There were complaints by one well-known blog however about wrinkly electropop but without these pioneers who changed music, where would we be today? As KRAFTWERK’s Ralf Hütter said: “From all over the world comes inspiration. We have been very lucky, because the music we envisioned, the ideas we had of The Man Machine and electro music, have become reality and technology has developed in our direction and electro is everywhere”.
Shouldn’t the imperial phase of Synth Britannia and its earlier Germanic influence therefore be celebrated in the way that senior blues musicians have been revered within the world of rock ‘n’ roll? Missing from the Mute evening’s proceedings as a collective were DEPECHE MODE who gave the world a U2 cover and a second instalment of their remix collection as part of their year’s work.
One rework that provoked enormous debate was Alan Wilder’s improved rework of 2009’s ‘In Chains’ which added speculation as to whether he would be rejoining the band. Certainly, it would induce some much needed creative tension that has mostly been missing from DEPECHE MODE since the start of the noughties.
But one act truly excelling in the darker side of electronic based music was IAMX who continued to conquer Europe while remaining largely ignored in the UK. Martin Gore could seriously learn from Chris Corner about how to make melodic, accessible music that doesn’t compromise artistically and retains a gritty edge. Meanwhile, Gore rekindled a working relationship with Vince Clarke on a techno project under the banner of VCMG.
Monday 21st March was an interesting day as it saw the release of albums by DURAN DURAN, THE HUMAN LEAGUE and John Foxx. As concert celberity Mr Normall amusingly recalled in his Facebook status “this is 2011, not 1981”! At least two of those albums were the best and most immediate bodies of work from those artists for many years. The bar has certainly been raised for acts such as ULTRAVOX and VISAGE who both announced forthcoming new albums. BLANCMANGE made their welcome return with Neil Arthur’s sense of humour as sharp as ever but sadly, he was unable to be joined for the live shows by his bandmate Stephen Luscombe due to illness. One hopes Stephen is making a good recovery.
MIRRORS showed their promise and delivered the superbly seamless long player ‘Lights & Offerings’. While the band themselves admitted it may have been a touch derivative, it was enjoyed by a small but loyal fanbase who embraced their whole intelligent pop noir aesthetic. However, just as they were about to make a breakthrough, a second high profile tour supporting OMD in Germany was cancelled along with an appearance at Bestival.
Then founder member Ally Young announced he was leaving the group. The situation has been likened by some observers to when Vince Clarke left DEPECHE MODE. Of course, the end result of that was both parties mutated into highly successful acts and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK is hopeful something similar may occur here. Certainly an excellent new darker tune called ‘Dust’ from the remaining trio indicates MIRRORS are not finished yet!
The similarly smartly attired HURTS continued their domination of Europe and while not as adored in the UK, they still did the business touring wise with sell-out shows at Somerset House and Brixton Academy with Kylie Minogue making a surprise guest appearance at the latter.
Of the ladies, Beth Ditto went superbly electronic with her debut solo EP while Claudia Brücken went jazz for the soundtrack of ‘LA Noire’, but not before celebrating the electronic part of her career with a fine retrospective Combined and a fantastic show at The Scala which saw a three quarters reunion of PROPAGANDA plus special guests ANDY BELL and HEAVEN 17.
Another acclaimed German chanteuse Billie Ray Martin returned with her new project THE OPIATES and an album ‘Hollywood Under The Knife’ while LADYTRON released a definitive Best Of ’00-10′ and a new album ‘Gravity The Seducer’. The latter was a glorious, lush masterpiece of aural subtlety which was not universally embraced by their fanbase but is likely to become a cult favourite in the future.
Meanwhile, the spectre of FEVER RAY’s Karin Drejer-Andersson lurked, both musically and politically, within several darker female fronted combos such as AUSTRA, THE HORN THE HUNT and GAZELLE TWIN. The brooding unsettlement of this Hauntronica (or witch house as it was sometimes referred) won favour with some while John Foxx named GAZELLE TWIN’s ‘The Entire City’ as his album of the year. However, this fairly uncompromising strain of electro wasn’t for everyone although it was definitely more preferable to dubstep, the trendy new dance form that even the usually club friendly Chris Lowe of PET SHOP BOYS was having trouble embracing!
But Nordic influences weren’t just about tonal gloom and witchery. Greek maidens MARSHEAUX adopted some FEVER RAY styled percussive moods on their only song of the year ‘Can You Stop Me?’ but remained synthpop while American duo NIGHTLIFE borrowed Sally Shapiro’s sweeter template.
Over at The Finland Station, producer Jori Hulkkonen’s PROCESSORY project delivered an 18 track electronic Sci-Fi concept album entitled ‘Change Is Gradual’. TIGER BABY from Denmark returned with the dreamy single ‘Landscapes’ while from Sweden, both THE GIRL & THE ROBOT and Emmon delivered enjoyable new material. There was also the mysteriously kooky IAMAMIWHOAMI but best of all from the region were THE SOUND OF ARROWS with the cinematic crystalline pop of their debut album ‘Voyage’.
At the pure pop end of the spectrum, Lady Gaga plotted her next move into world domination with new album ‘Born This Way’. With religious lyrical imagery were very much in evidence throughout, this was her ‘Like A Prayer’ with a Eurocentric sound being very much the dominant factor in the music. With her ear firmly on the inventive UK music scene, GOLDFRAPP, HURTS and MIRRORS were commissioned to deliver remixes of ‘Judas’.
LITTLE BOOTS returned with a bouncy house number called ‘Shake’ while SUNDAY GIRL had her album delayed again and didn’t appear to know whether she wanted to be a singer or a fashion designer. Her pop thunder has now potentially been stolen by the similar raspy timbres of Lana Del Rey whose pair of remixes by NIKONN became favourites with many electro enthusiasts. Embracing couture but with her head fully focussed on the music, QUEEN OF HEARTS brought some intelligent sparkle to electropop. With mentions in The Guardian and The Times, her superb EP ‘The Arrival’ realised the potential that was apparent in her earlier girl group days.
Several acts introduced by ELECTRICTYCLUB.CO.UK in 2010 gained prestigious supports slots as a sign of their steady progress. SHH were billed with former BLACK BOX RECORDER vocalist Sarah Nixey whileTHE VANITY CLAUSE opened for a solo Andy Bell performance and Electro Weimar songstress Katja von Kassel did the same at two of ERASURE’s shows in Germany.
VILLA NAH were due to play the biggest gig of their career with DURAN DURAN but Simon Le Bon’s illness, which also caused the postponement of the entire UK tour in May, unfortunately put paid to that. So it could be said that “Synthpop’s Alive” and this was exemplified by Essen based American act MAISON VAGUE who gave the world probably the best wholly independent release of the year.
Clark Stiefel’s wonderful cross of Gary Numan and DEVO was the work of a man brought up in the avant-classical world with hands-on experience of vintage Moog and Buchla modulars. Using the concept of “living in a dream since 1983”, despite the vintage influences, it was electronic music as imagined by the eccentricity of Oscar Wilde crossed with the thoughtful demeanour of late classical composer Franz Liszt.
Over the year, American based electronic acts were starting to come to the fore with XENO & OAKLANDER, SOFT METALS, HIGH PLACES, THE MYSTIC UNDERGROUND and Tara Busch all gaining notable acclaim.
A question that has to be asked though is whether there is too much synth based music at the moment? Interestingly, Thomas Dolby and Sarah Nixey moved away from the electronic world and released new albums that had a more personal, organic quality. Some observers were complaining about “synthpop by numbers” and “Synth Britannia throwbacks”, but as OMD’s Andy McCluskey once said on that very programme, if there was a magic button for a hit single, he’d have pressed it more times than anyone else.
While improvements in technology have made it much easier for the public at large to make music and interesting noises, not everyone has the ability to write proper songs. Not only that but the iPod/notebook generation have been listening to compressed mp3s on tinny speakers for such a long time now that they have no grasp of dynamics. This has hampered many new acts who have taken to doing everything themselves and as a result, produced some average pieces of work.
There is nothing like a second opinion and creative tension to help a new piece of music along. And it is this willingness to understand the cores of songwriting, production and arrangement that ultimately separates the good from the bad, and ultimately the outstanding from the good.
ELECTRICTYCLUB.CO.UK Contributor Listings of 2011
MIKE COOPER
Best album: MUERAN HUMANOS Mueran Humanos
Best Song: VELVET CONDOM Rouge City
Best Gig: KRAFTWERK at Die Alte Kongresshalle, Munich
Best Video: LADYTRON Mirage
Most Promising New Act: MUERAN HUMANOS
STEVE GRAY
Best album: GARY NUMAN Dead Son Rising
Best Song: TENEK What Do You Want?
Best Gig: Back To The Phuture – Tomorrow Is Today at The Troxy, London
Best Video: DURAN DURAN Girl Panic!
Most Promising New Act: QUEEN OF HEARTS
CHI MING LAI
Best album: MIRRORS Lights & Offerings
Best Song: VILE ELECTRODES My Sanctuary
Best Gig: Back To The Phuture -Tomorrow Is Today at The Troxy, London
Best Video: TIGER BABY Landscapes
Most Promising New Act: QUEEN OF HEARTS
NIX LOWREY
Best Album: SANDWELL DISTRICT Feed Forward
Best Song: JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS Summerland
Best Gig: KRAFTWERK at Die Alte Kongresshalle, Munich
Best Video: LADYTRON Mirage
Most Promising New Act: MUERAN HUMANOS
RICHARD PRICE
Best album: MIRRORS Lights & Offerings
Best Song: JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS Shatterproof
Best Gig: HEAVEN17/BEF Weekender at The Roundhouse
Best Video: QUEEN OF HEARTS Shoot The Bullet
Most Promising New Act: QUEEN OF HEARTS
JOHAN WEJEDAL
Best album: AUSTRA Feel It Break
Best song: MIRRORS Into The Heart (Greek Girls Are Not Easy extended remix)
Best gig: AUSTRA at Stockholm Debaser Medis
Best video: EMMON Ghost Dance
Most promising new act: LOUISE (ex-THERMOSTATIC)
The plush confines of London’s Royal Festival Hall was the venue for the wonderful ‘Electronic Phuture Revue’ curated by Back To The Phuture’s Mark Jones and HEAVEN 17’s Martyn Ware.
Forming part of the three day Vintage Festival, despite the nostalgia vibe of the weekend’s proceedings celebrating five decades of British cool, this showcase was certainly no cheesy nostalgia ride.
Instead it promised a show with classic and new interpretations of synthpop NOT 80s, in a distinct move away from the dreaded ‘Remember The Here & Now’ type associations! Opening the Revue, Alan Wilder’s RECOIL orchestrated a moody cinematic presentation that included forays into his side of the DEPECHE MODE story.
A terrific ‘Jezebel’ mashed-up with ‘Walking My Shoes’ and TUBEWAY ARMY’s ‘Are Friends Electric?’ was the first musical highlight of the evening while despite the early start, a powerful Aggro mix variation of ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ third track in managed to encourage a few of the devotional to get up and do the cornfield wave. With Paul Kendall as his willing conspirator, Wilder’s carefully selected cinematic segue also included elements of ‘Personal Jesus’ to help people to “reach out”. These various segments of familiarity provided accessible counterpoints to RECOIL’s more organic, sample based productions like ‘Prey’ and ‘Faith Healer’.
Speaking of DEPECHE MODE, New York based MOTOR were next and their new glam stomper ‘Man Made Machine’ features vocals by Martin Gore in a collaboration that sounds not unlike a camp Iggy Pop being backed by an angry GOLDFRAPP. Tonight, it is voiced by MOTOR themselves although Gore himself lurked in the video projections as the duo delivered their brand of harder edged techno electro. Their long awaited song based album is out later this year and will feature vocals by GARY NUMAN, ELECTRIBE 101’s Billie Ray Martin and NITZER EBB’s Douglas J McCarthy.
The DJ interval with Mark Jones allowed a breather before the arrival of MIRRORS. Despite the obvious comparisons with a certain synth act from the Wirral Peninsula, MIRRORS live are actually more like a young KRAFTWERK meeting DEPECHE MODE.
With recent appearances at fashion shows for the likes of Michalsky and Glastonbury under their belt plus their album ‘Lights & Offerings’ gaining the praise of many plaudits, 2011 has been very good for the sartorially chic quartet. Their sharp but moody aura, combined with an artful sensibility shone through as they exhibited their development of the classic Synth Britannia sound.
Unfortunately though, tonight they were limited to just ‘Fear Of Drowning’, ‘Into The Heart’, ‘Hide And Seek’ and ‘Ways To An End’ for their sojourn. However, MIRRORS impressed again and much of the aftershow chat was about their potential. Avoiding worries, the future of synthpop is bright and in eight very good hands.
ONETWO gave a highly polished recital that delved into a variety of songs from Claudia Brücken and Paul Humphreys’ corresponding histories as well as their more recent compositions. Synthpop standards ‘P-Machinery’, ‘Messages’, ‘Electricity’ and ‘Duel’ got the audience dancing and sat nicely side-by-side with the atmospheric dramas of ‘Sequentia’, ‘Thank You’, and the Martin Gore co-write ‘Cloud Nine’.
Even if the DEPECHE MODE songwriter wasn’t there physically, his presence was certainly felt in spirit throughout the event, such has been his influence on electronic pop music. Ms Brücken herself was in tremendous voice as usual, her chanteuse demeanour perfectly at ease with the sophisticated surroundings of the Royal Festival Hall.
Afterwards, Paul Humphreys and Alan Wilder were spotted chatting in the foyer before the start of Thomas Dolby’s set. The two keyboardists hadn’t seen each other in ages; had it really been 23 years since DEPECHE MODE beat OMD in that infamous cricket match, as documented in Steve Malins’ excellent DM biography ‘Black Celebration’, during the ‘Music For The Masses’ US tour?
Meanwhile in a very impressive performance, Thomas Dolby teamed up with his tribute act THE PIRATE TWINS in a most touching musical union. What a moment it must have been for Darren Goldsmith and Andrew Down to be playing with their hero, almost mirroring the occasion when Dolby himself and his band backed David Bowie at Live Aid.
Opening with the terrific ‘One Of Our Submarines’, Dolby journeyed back first with ‘Europa And The Pirate Twins’ and later ‘Hyperactive!’. On the latter, drummer Mat Hector did a brilliant job tightening his trousers to reprise Adele Bertei’s backing vocal!! Of course, there was also the madness of ‘She Blinded Me With Science’, with Dolby affectionately reminiscing about his recording sessions with the late Dr Magnus Pyke in his introduction and demonstrating the various samples used.
But then Dolby looked to the future with a superb exotically flavoured dance number entitled ‘Spice Train’. Guest singer Nicki Wells joined in and provided some alluring ethnic stylings for a great live preview of his new album ‘The Map Of The Floating City’. This symbolised one important aspect of all the classic acts in tonight’s line-up who had played up to this point; much as they have dozens of highly popular, memorable hit songs between them, they all performed material that was either new or from the last decade ie the 21st Century. Rewind Festival this evening was most certainly not!
To climax this special ‘Electronic Phuture Revue’ were HEAVEN 17 who truly delivered in their position as headliners. Although they were the only classic act not to play new or recent material, they made up for it instead by making a statement “to change people’s perceptions through the medium of reinterpretation” as Martyn Ware himself so eloquently put it to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK last May.
With a stark soundscape opening, the detuned tones of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s take on ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ clanked in. So here was the sight of Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware duetting as The Right-on Brothers. With this surprise still causing aftershocks, ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ and ‘Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry’ quickly got everyone on their feet by way of a Friday night disco atmosphere.
But what followed was an even more unexpected moment in a magnificent updating of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘The Black Hit Of Space’ from ‘Travelogue’, providing the highlight of the evening. Futuristic sounds warbled off and on – and yes, they weighed more than Saturn! Gregory was clearly enjoying his “Tonight Matthew, I will be Phil Oakey” moment and even Mark Jones left his DJ pulpit to mingle with the punters at the front for an impromptu singalong.
With ‘The Luxury Gap’ being played live in full at The Roundhouse in the Autumn, it made sense that ‘Come Live With Me’ and ‘Let Me Go’ got renditions to ease stunning new keyboard player Berenice Scott into the live band. But then the much heralded special guest took to the stage. Giving her spirited interpretation of ‘Ball Of Confusion which first brought Tina Turner back into the limelight on the BEF Music Of Quality Of Distinction LP was THE COMMUNARDS’ Sarah-Jane Morris.
It was Janis Joplin doing electro Motown and with the state of upheaval in the world at this present moment in time, the song’s forthright message was wholly relevant. As an entertaining experiment, it boded well for The Roundhouse shows later this year. With the inevitable ‘Temptation’ following and backing singer Billie Godfrey doing her usual star turn, to close it was another ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ moment for Glenn Gregory as HEAVEN 17 ended with their powerful take on ‘Being Boiled’.
Despite being an absolute treat musically, a few grumbles about the occasion have to be highlighted. At no time was the auditorium ever full, even for the later performing acts. The fault with this probably has to lie with the ticket distribution. Top price tickets were anything from £85 to £100, which priced most music fans out despite the impressive line-up assembled. Ticket sales were slow but following a 2-for-1 offer in The Guardian, the online seating plan appeared to show that the ‘Electronic Phuture Revue’ was gaining momentum.
However, judging by the number of people who took their seats for only ten minutes at a time and then promptly left, never to return, it would seem that tickets had been given to various people associated with the Vintage Festival like stall holders and VIPs who clearly had no interest in synthpop. Surely it would have been better to have had an affordable ticket price in the first place to fill the venue with music fans? This was disappointing for all the acts playing to say the least.
But the ridiculous curfew of 10.30pm meant that RECOIL were ushered in at 6.30pm and the following acts had to be so tightly packed into the schedule that there was minimal time for any of the audience to take a comfort break without missing at least one song by the next band!
With the various Vintage themed club happenings such as Northern Soul and Rockabilly happily banging away in the complex until 1.00am, surely some kind of licensing compromise could have been negotiated by the Vintage Festival organisers, South Bank Centre and local authority to make things a lot more practical and workable for such a unique gathering? There are lessons to be learnt by all.
But these issues should not dampen what a tremendously memorable evening this actually was. Like ‘Back To The Phuture -Tomorrow Is Today’ and ‘Short Circuit Presents Mute’ earlier in the year, the ‘Electronic Phuture Revue’ was yet another great event that reinforced electronic music’s credibility as the groundbreaking and vital cultural force it thoroughly deserves to be. Roll on the HEAVEN 17 / BEF weekender in October then…
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is released on 22nd October 2012 by Virgin/EMI Records
in place of Andy Bell…
, we’ll be doing something else which Claudia and Andy will sing as a duet.
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