[Mael-list] Rock Rock ROCK!

[Ned Raggett]

> Okay, this is the worst review ever.

Hardly!  It's so good I don't think I need to add much more!  :-)

So I'll say more first about the evening as a whole -- first and 
foremost MAJOR thanks to Dan, who stepped up following my ride crisis.  
:-)  He's a darn good egg, and as it turned out knew Wrenella from many 
years back!  That crazy punk rock, it'll keep you all in touch.  ;-)  
(But David, am I reading that right and you're down here in OC too?  
Y'all need to speak up more!  ;-) )

Wonderful seeing the Usual Suspects around again before and during, as 
well as after, the show -- I like it when seeing Wrenella on the 
sidewalk and then turning around and seeing Frank come walking up is 
almost run of the mill.  ;-)  Everyone all seemed in great spirits and 
it was especially nice meeting Sherry and Chris, both of whom are great 
folks and grand cut-ups.  :-)  And of course let me not forget briefly 
meeting the legendary Sue Harris (as thanked from the stage by Ron 
himself!).

I was over to the right of the stage right up front with the 
mael-list-and-associates coterie -- Dan, Sherry, Chris, Madeline, 
Laura, Joseph and assorted others.  Couple next to me had flown in from 
Massachusetts -- I heard elsewhere someone flew in from Hawaii! -- 
while another woman and her brother had along her young daughter -- she 
was about six or so! -- who knew just about every song and was calling 
out to 'Aunt Tammy!' when the band took the stage.  Aw.  :-)

David spot on on the dynamic of the band -- it was weird realizing that 
this was the first time ever that I'd seen Sparks play with a full rock 
band lineup!  They did it justice, down to Steve and his mustache.  ;-) 
  Staging was especially wonderful for the first half, with the four 
backing folks behind the screen and Ron and Russell out front -- v. 
dramatic, worked very well.

I will say that I love for both Lil Beethoven and now HYL how they do 
the 'full album performance' thing, I think that's really something 
near unique for long-lived (and not so long-lived) bands to do -- 
usually they trot out one or two 'new ones' in a desultory fashion and 
then just ramble through the hits.  This approach keeps the focus on 
what's been happening recently, gives everything its due, and is just 
more interesting all around.  Depeche come close with performing most 
of their new albums each time out, but this is still something only 
Sparks does in this particular fashion, at least to my knowledge, and 
it's v. welcome.

David having kindly talked about the music in general and IDed the set, 
I'll speak briefly on the video backdrops for the HYL songs:

"Dick Around" -- lots of HOT RON ACTION.
"Perfume" -- cute, almost one note but I liked it
"The Very Next Fight" -- a more affecting song the more I hear it, so 
having Ron beat himself up was both useful humor and actually kinda 
unnerving
"Baby Baby" -- heh heh heh.  THE ARMY OF MAELS WANTS YOU.
"Rock Rock Rock" -- loved the smoking monitors but really, this was all 
about Ron on stage with the guitar pretending to rock out and striking 
all those perfectly ridiculous poses.  The only possible way of 
upstaging the lighter-waver moment on the LB tour.
"Metaphor" -- I actually think this was the HYL song that improved the 
best in live performance, and having Ron playing against himself while 
tossing words around = genius
"Waterproof" -- waterfalls of hearts and guitars!
"Here Kitty" -- SERIOUSLY fucked up.  Those singing cat heads on Mael 
bodies were doing my head in.
"There's No Such Thing" -- the green head freaks, one with Ron 
mustache, were cool
"When I Sit Down" -- Tammy and Russell as mass congregation!  Space age 
retro future organ!  Hooray!

The "Pineapple"/"Gone With the Wind" moment being Russell's moment of 
unexpected glory, I'll have to nominate Ron's as doing the Miss Missy 
Tannenbaum verse on "Suburban Homeboy" and Tammy's as her gangsta pose 
and look while doing the backing vocals on the same song.  But as has 
been noted everyone ruled, and the Dean/Josh combination of spazzy 
guitar action set against Steve's relative calm made for great visuals, 
and indeed Tammy was bashing the hell out of her kit.  And o' course 
Russell and Ron were in their fine usual forms.

Biggest regret of the evening was that due to the high price of parking 
(catching me completely off guard!) and the fact that the box office 
took cash only I couldn't get Byrdie a shirt she had asked for, as I 
had completely run out of cash on hand.  Wah!  :-(  But to reiterate 
her wish to the band, please play New York, y'all.  :-)

Postshow we all ended up at IHOP and recuperated.  And then we went 
home.  But such is the way.  Yay!  Here's to the next one!

Ned
ned at kuci.org
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