[Mael-list] Some pro-Sparks propaganda

[Richard Miller]

Cathi and I decided that it was only really practical to do one show 
apart from the new album. It wasn't a hard decision for me as to which 
that should be. It contains several of my all-time favourites. And in 13 
years and nine shows of seeing the brothers, I have waited hopefully but 
always in vain for them to do At Home At Work At Play and Thanks But No 
Thanks. BC, Achoo, Don't Leave Me Alone With Her, Reinforcements, even 
Bon Voyage all came and went, but they stubbornly refused to do those 
two. Well they weren't going to get away without them tonight!

And that is the beauty of these shows. I am sure every Sparks fan has a 
similar tale to tell about their own particular favourite tracks that 
never get an airing, and now you know that they will get played, and 
when.

I wasn't impressed with the venue. Even though I knew it was only a 
couple of minutes walk from Angel Station, it was not signposted at all 
and not visible. For anyone going to later shows, follow signs for the 
N1 Centre. You can get to the venue from either Liverpool Road or Upper 
Street. There is a large modern sculpture of the Angel's wings at the 
Liverpool Road end and the halo at the Upper Street end.

Before heading into the venue, we wandered round Borders for a while - 
to the strains of Strange Animal. Hopefully the staff there will now be 
fans!

The venue itself is quite small. It was not happy holding the number of 
people who were there. It is narrow, so most people have a lot of heads 
in front of them. These two factors made it almost impossible to move 
around inside - you had to just find a spot and stay there in the crush. 
To whoever it was who was commenting on the lack of dancing, I don't 
think there was even room for a pogo! The stage is quite low, so most 
people only get the occasional glimpse of a head or an arm, and cannot 
really see what is happening on stage. It was quite a while into Ron's 
dance before I realised what was happening, and I am 5'11". For Cathi 
this problem was far worse. To be honest, I am rather glad we decided 
only to do the one show here.

There also seemed to be some technical problems at the start. Ron and 
Russell took the stage about 15 minutes late - perhaps that was the 
reason for the delayed start in the streaming? But when they got going, 
it was *so* worth the wait. At the opening a capella strains of 
Propaganda, the place erupted, and after a 13 year wait, the crashing 
guitar chords at the start of At Home At Work At Play gave me one of 
those girly screaming moments ((c) Will).

Classic followed classic. Reinforcements. BC. It was quite clear that 
Ron and Russell were having a whale of a time. At the start of the 
second verse of BC, Russell just stopped, waited, listened to the crowd 
coming in with the words, grinned and said "Wait for it...." He was 
playing with us.

And then another "GSM" as Thanks But No Thanks kicked in. After all 
those years waiting, I worried that the reality would be a letdown. I 
needn't have. It was just fantastic.

So far so brilliant, and we hadn't even got to NTYBOME and SFTGWE. The 
former now sounds wrong not being followed by Number One Song in Heaven, 
but they were still the great sing-a-long moments they always are. Well, 
I say "sing"-a-long. It was around this point that Cathi told me that I 
really can't sing. Well I know, and I don't care!

After Achoo, we had Who Don't Like Kids. With its syncopation, it has 
always been quite a tricky song to follow, and it must have been even 
more tricky to play, but they pulled it off magnificently. Russell 
played with the crowd again with the false ending, and then Ron did his 
dance. At the end of the song, he apologised and said he would never let 
it happen again. :-)

And so into Bon Voyage. While it has never been a favourite of mine, it 
rounded off the main set in style, before the boys upped the tempo one 
last time with a final glam stomp through Lost and Found. I had been 
expecting either Marry Me or Alabamy Right, but I was perfectly happy 
with that choice.

The journey home was cursed. We had to get back to Victoria station. The 
Victoria line is shutting at 10.00 pm for engineering works. So we 
changed at Euston onto a Charing Cross branch Northern Line train which 
promptly broke down. Then our train home terminated early and was 
replaced with a bus service. But none of that could dampen my spirits. 
It was a very special night.

It occurred to me last night after I got home: 21 albums, and not one of 
them is a live album. After this run of shows, Sparks could put that 
right with a vengeance!
-- 
Richard Miller