smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: 1989 |
| Date | Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:05:49 -0400 |
[Part 1 text/plain iso-8859-1 (2.2 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Holmes Online" <bholmes_fm@msn.com>
>> Let's see, two key members from the greatest live act I have ever
>> seen in my life, plus one of the most gifted R&B singers of the
>> decade...yeah, that's a recipe for disaster all right.
>
> Stewart - The English Beat is the greatest live act you've ever
> seen?? Musical aptitude? Energy level? Personality on stage?
> Considering how many bands you've probably seen, I would have lost
> this bet a hundred times and still not guessed them. Pray tell - why
> were they the greatest?
First and foremost, as you say, the energy level. I saw the Beat
repeatedly when I was growing up in Boulder (they were in fact my very
first concert, except for a John Denver gig my sister took me to when
I was 8): the Denver/Boulder area was one of the few places in America
where they were a draw at the time, and I swear, I think they played
there every 6 to 8 months. Between 1980 and June 1983, when they sold
out Red Rocks Amphitheater (a gig I've written about before as the
weirdest triple bill ever: the Beat headlining, Bow Wow Wow as the
middle act and as the opener, some baby band from Georgia called REM
whose first LP had only just come out) about three days before U2's
storied UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY gig, I saw them four times, the two
middle gigs being twice during a three-night stand at the Rainbow in
Denver in '82. Every time, the energy level both on the stage and in
the audience was simply phenomenal. These were likely the only gigs
I've ever been do where I actually danced, something I've never been
actually very good at. They were absolute masters of pacing, both in
terms of knowing when to extend a groove and when to cut it off, and
of knowing when to throw out one of the audience faves like "Twist and
Crawl" or "Doors Of Your Heart." Add in that they were simply
amazingly tight musically (Saxa never got his due on the records --
his live solos were invariably fantastic, never mere vamping for the
sake of it), with probably the best rhythm section of their time and
place, and that Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling were really
charasmatic frontmen and they were just a joy to watch, always.
S
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.