Tears For Fears

Today the new camera is in place and Dog TV is relaunched. It shows that everything is looking very  

cosy on the dog front with both of them curled up asleep. Not that it ever looks anything but cosy on the dog front.

Today’s sad news is the death of Gordon Banks, goalkeeping legend. 

In the evening we are at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. Yes, WTF. Formerly known as the Genting Arena. Yes, also WTF. Ok, I fess up, it's the NEC and I've competed at Crufts in this very arena and we are sat approximately where the weave poles were but that's another story.

This gig was supposed to be in May but it was rescheduled due to Roland Orzabal's wife falling ill and then sadly subsequently dying. All that is fine and unavoidable but what was annoying was seeing the concert moved from a Saturday to a Tuesday and from the nice centrality of the NIA to the ruralness of the NEC where it's also £12 to park your car. Presumably all done by the promoter to sell a few extra tickets. We had a hotel booked for May and a night out in Brum planned but it is what it is.

I’ve never really been an Alison Moyet fan and nothing she can do tonight would be likely to win me over and that’s fine. Other folk like her and she undeniably has a strong voice. Each to their own. However I am a little bemused by her set list choices. She plays a lot of recent material, as you would expect, including several tracks from her latest album ‘Other’ from 2017 but seems to eschew her own solo catalogue on which she made her name.

Alf does play her first two solo hits 'Love Resurrection' and 'All Cried Out' but none of her other hits from the 80s and 90s. No 'Invisible', 'That Ole Devil Called Love', 'Is This Love?, 'Weak in the Presence of Beauty' or 'Love Letters' for example.

Consequently she doesn’t really get the crowd going and then seems to realise this towards the end of the set where three of the last four tracks are Yazoo songs. Not that, I for one minute, think this wasn’t a pre-planned move. It suits me. I've always had a soft spot for Yazoo and everyone is on their feet for the closing ‘Don’t Go’.

Tears For Fears also do something slightly unusual, in that they take to the stage to Lorde’s brooding version of 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' before launching into the original. Presumably this means they approve.

There follows a very polished ninety minutes of entertainment as Roland Orzabal, Curt Smith and their band run through their back catalogue right up to 2004’s comeback album ‘Everybody Loves a Happy Ending’ and even including 'Break It Down Again' from the period where Orzabal used TFF as a solo project following an acrimonious split from Smith.

Personally I loved the first two albums but they lost me with the different direction they took with ‘The Seeds Of Love’ album in 1989 and seemingly Smith agreed with me as he was gone shortly afterwards.

Thankfully Smith who sang all the early hits, and presumably Orzabal too, still have a lot of love for the band’s debut album ‘The Hurting’ and Smith comments on how the younger generation were now discovering the band through that album. Here’s a thought. How good would it be to hear them play that album in it’s entirety sometime?

He then introduces a run of four tracks from it. 'Pale Shelter' had already been played earlier and now we get 'Change', 'Mad World' and the amazing 'Memories Fade' sung by Orzabal.

If that is his finest singing moment on ‘The Hurting’ then ‘Suffer the Children’ is probably his second finest. So I am at a loss to understand why he hands over vocals on this epic track to backing singer Carina Round. Yes she does a good job but it’s just not right. She is much better suited to duetting with Orzabal on 'Woman in Chains’ which comes next.

The set then loses it’s momentum with the rather tepid 'Advice for the Young at Heart' and the meandering and indulgent 'Badman's Song' before a set closing 'Head Over Heels / Broken' lifts things to a satisfying conclusion.

Naturally I’d have finished things off a little differently, for a start 'Songs from the Big Chair' was criminally underused tonight. 'Mother's Talk' and 'The Working Hour' would have been nice, then perhaps 'The Hurting' followed by the full ‘Broken’ sandwich for 'Head Over Heels' but I'm an awkward sod to please.   

There is then a mad rush for the exits, presumably to get out of the car park. This is something I’ve never understood, just like I’ve never understood people who have never seen the end of a football match because they always leave on eighty minutes. It’s always been all or nothing for me.

The band return to play ‘Shout’ to those who are left, which is still most of us, completing an excellent evening.

(Tuesday 12^th February)

Blowing The Dust Off The Vinyl

L announces that she's going to get rid of all her old vinyl as she reckons she’s not played them since about 1978, nor is she likely to. That’s clearly a slight exaggeration as I look through them to see if there’s anything I’d keep but she says I won’t want her teenage Northern Soul gumph.

I dig out something a little more ‘modern’ than that, Tears For Fears ‘Seeds Of Love’ from 1989. As we are going to see them tomorrow night I blow the dust off the record to give it a play, then I also need to blow the dust off the record player in order to play it.

This all reminds me that I must sort out a modern way of playing our music collection. Speakers on the WiFi, that sort of thing. Looking at the record player I might have to invest in a decent turntable as well so that I can play my own vinyl.

In the evening L is out in Derby and I pick her up afterwards even though she delays collection until 9pm, well past her bedtime.

(Monday 11^th February)

A Meticulously Planned Weekend

We are back at home for the weekend because we were looking forward to a fairly eclectic weekend in Birmingham. Tears For Fears had scheduled a gig at the conveniently central NIA so that we could both revisit our youth (or earlier youth, as obviously we’re still in our youth) but then they cancelled. This had ruined our meticulously planned weekend which included Birmingham by train, a hotel and the next day, for L, the Birmingham 10k.

What’s worse the rescheduled date is in midweek next year and at the hopelessly located NEC, not helpful. I did try to swap the tickets to another gig but they are all as good as sold out and we had really good seats at the NIA.

Anyhow we still go ahead with the rest of the weekend and have a great time. We even get to walk the 10k course ahead of the race by strolling out to the MAC (Midlands Art Centre) to see a film.

Funny Cow is about a stand-up comedienne (Maxine Peake) taking on the men at their own game in the dingy working men’s clubs of the 1970s. It is in one such place in the north of England where she sees the depressive Lenny (Alun Armstrong) up on stage, going through the motions with his dire material, and effectively dying, that inspires her in the first place.

When she talks to him about his act, he assures her that ‘women aren’t funny’, and suggests she tries singing or stripping instead but it is comedy that she wants to do. Comedy is a release for her from her miserable life. 

From a childhood living with an abusive father (Stephen Graham) through to a dysfunctional marriage to the violent and controlling Bob (Tony Pitts) via a mother (Lindsey Coulson) driven to drink by life.

Finally leaving her husband and taking up with bookshop owner Angus (Paddy Considine), who takes her to see foreign films which fall way outside her comfort zone, turns out to be not that much of a trade up.

Meanwhile she struggles to gain a foothold in the world of the gungy pub carpet. She suffers from terrible nerves when she attends an audition where she is up against a singer (Richard Hawley), a ventriloquist (Vic Reeves) and an Elvis impersonator (John Bishop) with his dog (Bilko).

Eventually she blags her way on to stage when the promoter has little choice when faced with an empty stage. There she finally gains acceptance, and later success, but only by winning round the hostile audience by embracing the 1970's reality of doing racist and homophobic gags, while dealing with the inevitable hecklers.

In the film we see her after her success, then before, then after again in series of Dave Allen like scenes in front of the camera. Scenes that for me distract from the narrative of the film and therefore drag down what was a generally strong film. 

The later scenes seem to show her just as cynical and disillusioned with everything as she was before she became a comedienne. Even being a success doesn’t appear to have brought her any happiness but then she probably never expected it to.

(Saturday 5^th May)