Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California
[Melody Maker, 16th July 1988, Words: Paul Mathur.]
Wire have probably not played to 100,000 people in total as they’ve skimmed their precious stones across the edges of a strange pop history. [1] And yet here they are in a place larger than Wembley Stadium cranking the din up loud, playing all the notes that sound wrong, but seduce with criminal ease, bewildering the Californians. It might have been “Silk Skin Paws” that turned the event upside down, sounded like a dyslexic Springsteen, touched. There. Awesome or something.
Thomas Dolby should by rights, be locked up. The next best solution is obviously to keep him holed up in LA where loud suits, inept rapping, songs about airheads and sets that last forever and a day are common coinage. A name to stick under the rabies stickers at Dover.
OMD continue the plink-plonk tickle with a performance that still leaves you wondering whether they actually enjoy what they do. “Enola Gay” and “Electricity” are chipper enough, but the whole was rather too close to those kids tea parties you see in the corner of McDonalds’ to ever grab the attention. Andy McCluskey is really going to have to stop that daft dance soon, or the men with the big nets will be round for a second opinion.
Depeche Mode have always been greater than the sum of their apparent parts, and even in the context of a show that was bound to pig itself on unreality, they still provided the only jolts to match those of Wire. “People Are People” may well be a work of fiction, but a song like “A Question Of Lust” still possesses a wry, sexy sadness. The performance was longer than the summer’s day it soundtracked, but there was still enough there to suggest that DM are girding their loins for something spikier than we might expect.
The sun went down, we all went home and forgot it had ever happened. Life’s a beach sometimes, as the Mexican fellow under the seat remarked.
[1] - This seems to be implying that 100,000 were present at the gig: if so, it's a massive overestimate. Figures quoted for the attendance range a couple of thousand either side of 70,000. [continue]
[Melody Maker, 16th July 1988, Words: Paul Mathur.]
Wire have probably not played to 100,000 people in total as they’ve skimmed their precious stones across the edges of a strange pop history. [1] And yet here they are in a place larger than Wembley Stadium cranking the din up loud, playing all the notes that sound wrong, but seduce with criminal ease, bewildering the Californians. It might have been “Silk Skin Paws” that turned the event upside down, sounded like a dyslexic Springsteen, touched. There. Awesome or something.
Thomas Dolby should by rights, be locked up. The next best solution is obviously to keep him holed up in LA where loud suits, inept rapping, songs about airheads and sets that last forever and a day are common coinage. A name to stick under the rabies stickers at Dover.
OMD continue the plink-plonk tickle with a performance that still leaves you wondering whether they actually enjoy what they do. “Enola Gay” and “Electricity” are chipper enough, but the whole was rather too close to those kids tea parties you see in the corner of McDonalds’ to ever grab the attention. Andy McCluskey is really going to have to stop that daft dance soon, or the men with the big nets will be round for a second opinion.
Depeche Mode have always been greater than the sum of their apparent parts, and even in the context of a show that was bound to pig itself on unreality, they still provided the only jolts to match those of Wire. “People Are People” may well be a work of fiction, but a song like “A Question Of Lust” still possesses a wry, sexy sadness. The performance was longer than the summer’s day it soundtracked, but there was still enough there to suggest that DM are girding their loins for something spikier than we might expect.
The sun went down, we all went home and forgot it had ever happened. Life’s a beach sometimes, as the Mexican fellow under the seat remarked.
[1] - This seems to be implying that 100,000 were present at the gig: if so, it's a massive overestimate. Figures quoted for the attendance range a couple of thousand either side of 70,000. [continue]