OMD to tour Architecture And Morality

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I guess there may be a few people here interested in this:

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark will return for a series of concerts, commencing in May 2007, which will feature founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys , including original band mates Martin Cooper and Malcolm Holmes, (ed: wot, no Winston?) performing their classic 1981 album "Architecture and Morality" in its entirety, as well as many of the more than twenty hits they scored during their long career.

May 13th - Dublin
May 15th - Glasgow
May 16th - Liverpool
May 18th - London
May 21st - Stuttgart
May 22nd - Brussels
May 23rd - Hamburg
May 25th - Paris
May 26th - Cologne
May 27th - Utrecht

Tickets for some shows already on sale. I'm inclined to think that OMD are perhaps the most under-rated band of the 80s (they blew it by continuing after 1985). Let's hope they bring the mellotron. I am already excited about this. Is anyone else?

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

New answers...

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

Wake me for the Dazzle Ships tour.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 13 November 2006 10:34 (nineteen years ago)

hurrah! we have discussed this on some of the other OMD threads, but given that a) they're a confusing mess and b) they're difficult to search for, this thread is a GOOD IDEA. and thank you, harvey: you're the first person to give me dates for this. i'm booking for glasgow today.

alext, ned, esteban buttez, rob, alan T and a host of others to thread (alext to the glasgow gig, i assume, too).

wow. the more i think about this, the more excited i become. i might have to excuse myself for a few moments.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:10 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yes. Glasgow for me. Will book a.s.a.p. My better half may well also want to come.

― alext (alext), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:12 (nineteen years ago)

hopefully mine too. and ian will be there, i'm sure. anyway ... glasgow's not on sale yet, but this is a link to the official OMD site, where i assume details will be posted first. there's not even any confirmation of a glasgow venue yet, so i suppose we should just contain ourselves for now ...

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:17 (nineteen years ago)

Wake me for the Dazzle Ships tour.

GROUTY OTM

― wordy rappaport (EstieButtez1), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:24 (nineteen years ago)

HURRAZ

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:34 (nineteen years ago)

"New answers..." ohy harvey, yr so old skool! i don't think that's been necessary since the move from greenspun. (actually i might be wrong)

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

>>i don't think that's been necessary since the move from greenspun.

I don't know what that means.

Dazzleships is certainly a more interesting record than Architecture & Morality, but I'm not sure that it's actually *better* .... and on reflection I'm not even sure it's any more interesting. I think the musique concrete elements of OMD are much more successfully incorporated into the whistle-at-a-bus-stop elements of OMD on Arch'n'Mor than Dazzleships, where a lot of the time it seems rather too "we are weird". I love 'em both (apart from Kraftwerk they were probably my favourite band circa 80-83), but c'mon, cut Arch'n'Mor some slack. For a record that contained three UK top 5 hits (yes?), & was a top 5 LP itself, it's a very challenging & uncompromising record. Yet very pop too.

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:54 (nineteen years ago)

Luckily it isn't "Dazzle Ships", which was the worst rubbish they ever did.

But I still find the idea of touring an old album a bad one. They should have done this in 1981-82, today it would be more natural for them to come up with some newly written stuff in the same style and release a comeback album like Soft Cell and Human League have already done before them.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 13 November 2006 11:57 (nineteen years ago)

Luckily it isn't "Crush", which was the worst rubbish they ever did.

― wordy rappaport (EstieButtez1), Monday, 13 November 2006 12:10 (nineteen years ago)

harvey totally OTM.

my "not since greenspun" comment BTW - i was saying that back in the day if you started a thread it used to be the case that the thread would not appear on new answers until there was at least one answer so ppl would post "new answers plz" to get it on there. then when g coded us up here he made answerless posts appear on newanswers in bold.

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 13 November 2006 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

Luckily it isn't "Dazzle Ships", which was the worst rubbish they ever did.

oh, you. don't be starting with that one again. probably still my favourite album ever, all things considered; HURRY UP WITH THAT FUCKING REMASTER, MCLUSKEY.

But I still find the idea of touring an old album a bad one.

once again, i disagree. i'm 31; i got into OMD when i was 14 or so and saw them live when i was 16 or 17 (the "sugar tax" tour). the chance to see the classic line-up performing a classic album (my second favourite) is beyond wonderful; it's something i'd never have dreamed would be possible.

at this stage of the game, i'd view new material as a bonus: if they can write something half-decent, good on them, but i certainly don't expect it any more. i mean, look at new order: they're still capable of occasional magic, but the majority of their output in the past few years has been lumpen, directionless flailing. the mcluskey/humphreys/cooper/holmes OMD might have produced some staggering genius but there was also a whole heap of shit; who's to say that any new material they produced wouldn't be another "junk culture"?

except without the steel drums, i guess.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

5th November 2006
Andy McCluskey had the opportunity recently to view the original Enola Gay aircraft, currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

While viewing the plane, Andy was struck by the size of it. In comparison to modern day commercial airliners the Enola Gay is relatively small.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 13 November 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

HURRY UP WITH THAT FUCKING REMASTER, MCLUSKEY.

He better hurry the fuck up with it, I still want "Swiss Radio International" http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/694/emotargh6cj.gif

― wordy rappaport (EstieButtez1), Monday, 13 November 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

Swiss Radio International here:

http://home.arcor.de/uvolk/curis/sui_sri.ram

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

i was gonna say: it's a bit disappointing. makes me want an ice-cream, though.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

Create your own DazzleShips outtake here:

http://home.arcor.de/uvolk/curis_eu.htm

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

I saw them on the "Dazzle Ships" tour. So good! It was fucking incredible.

No Newcastle :( Could be up for Glasgow, though.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

http://home.arcor.de/uvolk/curis_eu.htm - WHAT AN ACE RESOURCE!

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:24 (nineteen years ago)

>>makes me want an ice-cream, though.

Exactly the comment Malcolm Holmes made at the time.

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

Since I have to travel for this, I'm tempted by Glasgow too.

Although London is a Friday, and a long weekend in Cologne might be fun...

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

Thus why it is known as the ice cream song. (xpost)

― wordy rappaport (EstieButtez1), Monday, 13 November 2006 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

I saw them on the "Dazzle Ships" tour. So good! It was fucking incredible.

from pictures i've seen, it looks astonishing. i am very jealous. even though i'd only have been eight at the time, and probably wouldn't have understood very much of it :)

you don't have the tour book, do you? i saw a copy at the saville exhibition in london and it looked ace; it was behind glass, though, so i couldn't look properly.

No Newcastle :( Could be up for Glasgow, though.

this would be excellent: an ILM outing to see OMD appeals greatly. and aldo: cologne would be cooler, but glasgow will rock harder :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

now, if we can persuade ned to come over too ... :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

I might be tempted along for the Glasgow one too, if tickets go on sale coinciding with one of the rare periods when I have money.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 13 November 2006 16:11 (nineteen years ago)

More news hot from the OMD message board (actually Andy McClusky)

Glasgow venue: Clyde Auditorium
London venue: Hammersmith Apollo

Also...."We do plan a couple of small club warm ups...."

Hmmm?

― harveyw (harveyw), Monday, 13 November 2006 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

Clyde Auditorium?! Wow. Big venue alert!

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 13 November 2006 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

does "clyde auditorium" mean the armadillo as opposed to the actual SECC? (i think it does, but i'm kinda out the loop these days.) if so: fucking superb. excellent venue for it.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

now, if we can persuade ned to come over too ... :)

A vision, it is true!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 13 November 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

It does indeed Grimly. I've never been to a gig there, but seems as good a way to start as any.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 13 November 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

i've seen tori amos there. and shaggy.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 13 November 2006 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

I'm so bloody annoyed that they aren't playing anywhere near Wales. Just about all their previous tours included a Cardiff gig, and they even did a small gig at the Top Rank there in late '83 to try out some of the "Junk Culture" songs they'd written on the Fairlight. (Which was the last OMD gig in Wales that I missed). But no, forget Wales even exists. Pah!

I'd imagine they will either use a real Mellotron (it was a Novatron at the time they used it), or one of the VST versions which are rather fun to play around with.

― Rob M (Rob M), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

I listened to A&M again the other day and just realised that "Georgia" really did incorporate musique concrete better than anything on Dazzle Ships did.

(This is not a knock on Dazzle Ships, friends.)

― wordy rappaport (EstieButtez1), Wednesday, 15 November 2006 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

Tickets now available for Hammersmith Apollo (presale)

http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/17003D8689F48549?camefrom=CFC_UKAFF_Z214_2VIEW&m3_data=ej04MjR8cD0yNTQzfGE9NTU1Ng&brand=uk_viewlondon

― harvey.w (harvey.w), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

Dear Glasgow and surroundings, please all come to the pub on 15th May and laugh at Grimly acting like a hyperactive five-year-old on Christmas morning.

(presales on for Glasgow too, folks: http://www.livenation.co.uk/events/event_info.aspx?rid=220665&&shortcut=omd)

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

I am definitely going to see this (OMD), REALLY looking forward to it.

― JohnFoxxsJuno (JohnFoxxsJuno), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:36 (nineteen years ago)

fuck dude, this has to come to America. OMD's best album, easily.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

Dead heat with Dazzle Ships, I'd say.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

Actually you're probably right! I love love love A&M but I haven't heard much of Dazzle Ships beyond "Telegraph."

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:50 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

you need to be rectifying that, curtis.

so who's gonna be at the glasgow gig on tuesday, then? me, stet and madchen (both out of curiosity, but that's a good thing), byebyepride, my mate ian ... anyone else?

i bought the remastered/rereleased A&M the other day, complete with 1981 drury lane gig on it. i've only had time to watch half of it so far. observations:

- what the FUCK were they playing bloody "mysteriality" for as the second song? good god. was that just so martin cooper could whop out his horn? he tries that on tuesday and i'm gonna get on stage and shove the fucker up his ass.

- andy is a very, very intense man on stage. so much so that he often forgets how to sing. i will be intrigued to see if this happens 26 years on.

- "maid of orleans" is still such a work of out-there wonder it makes me weep tears of molten joy.

er, that's all for now. first-edition papers are up, which suggests i should be doing second-edition arts reviews and stuff.

anyway. OMD GLASGOW REPRAZENT.

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:15 (eighteen years ago)

Well, I'm not going, but I might come along to say hi to you guyz, because that would be the shiz!

― Keith, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)

p.s. I danced to Electricity at the Egg last night.

― Keith, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

dude!

which version? hannett original? virgin pressing one? virgin pressi ... no, i'm joking. really. i'm joking.

well, sort of joking.

i might ask you more tomorrow. hang on, you're going to come all the way to glasgow just to hang out with us before/after a gig? cool :)

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:24 (eighteen years ago)

Is it tomorrow? I thought it was Tuesday...

― Keith, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:27 (eighteen years ago)

you're right, it is. sorry: i'm working on monday's paper, so i'm getting confused.

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:33 (eighteen years ago)

Ha... You crazy working hour dudes.

― Keith, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

I'm going to be up in Glasgow on Tues for this if anyone's interested in DRiNQ, like.

― Pashmina, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

superb! we were just discussing whether or not you were gonna be about.

not sure yet what time we'll be there. when you gonna be about?

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 23:05 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 43 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeees. more tomorrow. going to write review now and will post it here on thursday once it appears :(

― grimly fiendish, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 23:49 (eighteen years ago)

I just got back in! Great night people - thoroughly enjoyed it. Great to see you all and meet Pash etc. Pity we didn't have much time to 'hang out' afterwards.

― Keith, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 23:51 (eighteen years ago)

aye! pash: haste ye back; it was superb to meet you. we're gonna do it all again ...

... although probably not when OMD do their greatest-hits tour later this year.

i've just finished my review; professional wotsit stops me from posting it here until it's published. i will, however, break with my personal ILX protocol and stick it up here too once the thing's appeared in print.

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

Great to meet Pash, and to see stet, ailsa, madchen etc... and sorry to all for having to rush off. I was convinced we would never be able to get back to central glasgow and would have to hitch hike home or something. Needless to say we had time to spare.

Will post my feelings on the subject of the gig when I'm more awake.

― byebyepride, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 08:14 (eighteen years ago)

the more i think about this, the more aggrieved i feel :(

more anon. once i can put the review up.

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)

hammersmith apollo awning set

― Alan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

It was great to meet all you guys, yr all such nice people! It's always a pleasure to visit Glasgow as well. Loads of thanks to L for putting me up for the night (I was originally planning on finding a park somewhere & sleeping rough b/c my sister, who lives in Glasgow was away)

Holy shit @ trying to get out of Glasgow on UEFA cup final day!

Pro OMD:
Once they got going (three numbers in) they were great. There was a solid run from "Souvenir" through to "Forever Live & Die" when they were awesome.
Drummer was great, w/excellent heavy, rolling feel to his playing
High point was def. knockout trio "Souvenir"/"Joan of Arc"/Maid of Orleans".

Anti OMD:
Way, WAY too much of the hits set that followed A&M (IE nearly everything else they played) was from the post "Dazzle Ships" albums - weaker material generally & baffling given that the tour prog was all about how they married pop tunes & electronic experimentalism (uh, not on the later stuff, they didn't) WTF @ no "Red Frame: White Light", "Stanlow" etc.

The crowd went nuts for it all anyway! I mean really, the whole place was on its feet, eh.

So, mixed feelings about the gig, really.

― Pashmina, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)

a lawyer writes: actually, mr fiendish isn't allowed to print his review here.

but if he was it might look very like this one here.

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

Nice one...

You know, it was the nostalgia thing that got me. When I saw the '70s WHO a few years ago at the SECC, I was very impressed by Pete Townshend not even batting an eyelid, when red indian Roger Daltrey sang 'hope I die when I get old'.

By way of contrast, when Andy McCluskey said 'You lot are as old as me', making the whole thing feel like some sort of Butlins tour of the German Boney M and Woody's Bay City Roller, I felt like shouting 'No I'm fucking not'.

― Keith, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

Still, I enjoyed Messages. I had forgotten what that sounded like.

― Keith, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

i always do. it's a very good song. IT'S NOT TELEGRAPH OR GENETIC ENGINEERING, THOUGH, IS IT?

i do have more to say but i'm waiting on alex coming along with his eloquent thoughts too.

some sort of Butlins tour of the German Boney M and Woody's Bay City Roller

exactly. as ian put it in an e-mail today: "a northern cabaret
official covers band pretending to be OMD and giving the rest of the
audience a chance to clap along and dance in the aisles".

hey ho. shoulda known better than to give my heart ... :)

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

I can't remember Genetic Engineering, though I have the feeling I didn't think it was particularly good. I had a tape from the charts with the great TOMMY VANCE doing the rundown, when that was in the charts. Still can't remember it, though.

Youtube will probably help, though.

― Keith, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

Which, indeed it does. No, that one doesn't ring a bell at all. Must've gone in one ear and out the other at the time. It's not the best, I have to say!

― Keith, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:40 (eighteen years ago)

I liked "Genetic Engineering"! It's frantic.

McCluskey's spiel was always a bit like that, though! He hasn't changed that much over the years in any way at all, really. My problem wasn't with the playing or anything, I thought they played great for the most part, it was the weirdly skewed setlist. No "Stanlow" (even though it was admittedly not a single) is hard to forgive! Not as hard to forgive as playing that terrible Louise Brooks tribute song though...

― Pashmina, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:53 (eighteen years ago)

That said, if I hadn't enjoyed the visit to Glasgow so much generally, I'd probably be loads more pissed off about the gig.

― Pashmina, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

Oh yeah, it was a great day out... All in all.

― Keith, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 23:03 (eighteen years ago)

By way of contrast, when Andy McCluskey said 'You lot are as old as me', making the whole thing feel like some sort of Butlins tour of the German Boney M and Woody's Bay City Roller, I felt like shouting 'No I'm fucking not'.

MacCluskey also used the word "boogieing" in a non-parodic sense. I swear to God he hit his arm and spun it round in a Ricky-Gervais-Flashdance-fused-with-MC-Hammer-shit kind of a way at one point. I squirmed in my lovely comfy cinema-chair a bit.

― ailsa, Thursday, 17 May 2007 07:08 (eighteen years ago)

Ha! -- it was worse than that: he said something like 'it's all mindless boogieing from now on in'. As if to APOLOGISE for having had to play, you know, Sealand and other excellent moody synth epics. WTF? I think grimly's 'embarrassed' in the review totally nailed the way they treated the A&M material. Not that it wasn't totally awesome at the same time, and the volume was fantastic -- every time the drummer hit the big drum, I felt it in my stomach. This was synth-pop as triumphalist spectacle, big and unashamedly ODD sounding. All the little clanks and whirrs and micro fills present and correct.

And I agree with Pashmina that they kept the momentum up to Forever Live and Die. (FWIW that's the only OMD song I can remember hearing 'at the time': the rest I learnt years later in the bargain basement of MVE in Notting Hill with Tom, that in amongst the 10p 7"s lurked these exotic artifacts, beautiful sleeves with terrific art-pop inside, banging electropop melodies with agonised, stately dirges on the back. I remember buying my cassette copy of A&M too, 1.99 in Oscars in Dundee, slapping it in my walkman and being blown away. [Other world-destroying cassette I bought there was Sub Plates 2 but that's another story...])

But then?? WHY LORD WHY??

Now my first assumption was that we had a straight culture clash -- i.e. half the audience are serious boys in long coats, all grown-up, sad fan-wank dicks, looking to sit po-faced and earnest through some vintage electronic squiggles; the other half are aging disco dollies and their husbands looking to relive the urgent hours in 80s ballrooms before the first baby. Band try to satisfy both halves, everyone leaves a little disappointed ("what was with that sell-out shite in the second half?" vs "what was with the boring dirge stuff at the beginning?"). But then I realised that the first category only really covered me and grimly!

Which means that most of the people there seemed to be getting what they wanted! Which also means that most of them either can't tell, or don't care (and I'm happy to admit that there are bands where I can't or won't distinguish between their good and bad stuff) about the difference between the early and late material. But even if they don't care, can't the band tell?? (And actually, that's something that I'm fascinated by, i.e. the extent to which a band making rubbish records doesn't realise it, or is somehow blind to the fact that they've lost what made them unique or interesting or special).

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 08:33 (eighteen years ago)

I agree with Keith about the nostalgia thing -- 'blimey, I'm older, you're older, but we're still able to have some fun, although you won't be drinking because you've got to drive home to your pristine suburban semi and yes we'll be done by half ten so you won't owe the baby sitter another eight quid for staying after eleven, and did you remember to tell her about...' I've got no reference point for whether McCluskey was always such an arse on stage. Maybe everyone was enjoying having him back? But it felt like a lack lustre attempt to convince themselves that things hadn't changed, that they were still stadium synth maestros, with wild screaming fans, and... and... Hang on, was this ever true? Was this how things were for OMD, or is this an imagined past, a pathetic reconstruction of the imagined glory which separates them from every other old warhorse trotting round the Butlins circuit?

And if anyone can help with the rationale behind this -- why advertise the tour as A&M? Who were they trying to attract that wouldn't buy tickets for a Greatest Hits tour (no-one in that room, except possibly me, certainly). Why add on the extra dates as a greatest Hits tour. I imagine a scenario in which the only way they can get back together is by promising to play something from when they were young and fresh and still liked each other, and the glory was shared more equally, but that in the rehearsal rooms they find out that they quite like each other still, well enough to work together anyway, and that a greatest hits tour would, well, pad out their pensions a little bit more, so screw the 'art' let's simply retrace the downward trajectory of our work, and the upward curve of our popularity EVERY NIGHT on the A&M section of the tour!! Anyway there must be an actual answer to 'WTF were they thinking', and if anyone can supply it, I'd be very grateful...

Oh yes -- and do you think the tour designer was taking the piss or what? Did the graphics on the backdrop really get worse and worse as the music did, or was I imagining it? Lowpoint on both fronts being Locomotion, I guess, with bargain bucket cog wheel animation -- I imagine there is software which does that sort of thing in seconds. 'wheel here, wheel here, rotate at this speed, orange light from this angle for highlighting... job done. three grand please granddad'.

Arrghhh. brain-dump over.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 08:34 (eighteen years ago)

oh god, i'd forgotten about the cogwheels. wow.

I've got no reference point for whether McCluskey was always such an arse on stage.

yes: in the 1981 drury lane concert (on the re-released A&M package) he's a complete and utter throbber.

Anyway there must be an actual answer to 'WTF were they thinking'

i've been mulling this over a lot, and i really do think it comes down to mccluskey's ego. i've a lot more half-assed thoughts to add, but a hellish busy day looms ... will return anon to expand upon this.

but yes: i think the key thing is that the band (or at least mccluskey) can't actually see any qualitative difference between the A&M stuff and, say, "walking on the milky way": to them it's just part of some great continuum. in fact, i bet that mccluskey would be proud of that; see it as evidence of what an amazing band they are/genius he is.

But it felt like a lack lustre attempt to convince themselves that things hadn't changed, that they were still stadium synth maestros, with wild screaming fans, and... and... Hang on, was this ever true?

morley's notes in the programme, although riddled with mistakes and obviously proofread by a one-eyed donkey (if at all), do touch upon this. but i think that's kinda what this is about, in a nutshell: mccluskey thinks he's a genius/sees A&M -> milky way as a natural progression/gets to bask in the glory they never quite got first time round.

except he doesn't, because the eighties nostalgia hen-nights won't remember so much of a second of that gig today, while obsessive fanboy spunkazoids like me and BBP now feel mightily aggrieved that a band we ALWAYS KNEW lost their way didn't have the sense to reclaim their early material and say, look, we once mattered; they just put on a weak "show" that tried to appeal to everyone.

that being the other thing. mccluskey strikes me as a decent (and undeniably enormously talented) bloke who is simply desperate to be liked. and in trying to please everyone, he just reduces everything to the level of a lowest-common-denominator nostalgia gig.

as i said to BBP yesterday: it's like some school nerd who everyone actually quite liked turning up at a reunion going "no, really, i am a great success and i really do matter." when in actual fact that's going to impress no-one: the people he thinks it's impressing don't care, while those who wanted to be impressed are totally nonplussed.

ULTIMATELY, though, the problem here is that BBP and i are gloomy synth snobs who are pissed off because we wanted 90 minutes of tears-of-blood mellotrons and that was probably never going to happen.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:39 (eighteen years ago)

good god, that's a lot of bolding. wow.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:39 (eighteen years ago)

This is fascinating! But I don't think you should be surprised that AM doesn't treat the earlier material with the same reverence you do. Of course he doesn't think that OMD lost their way - artists rarely do. But I agree that it jars to advertise it as A&M revisted. That's odd.

It's interesting to compare this with New Order gigs of the last few years. It [is] wretched to see Barney reading the words from an autocue and punctuating Love Will Tear Us Apart with fist-in-the-air cries of 'C'mon' and 'Whooo', and it's disappointing to see someone miming a keybd part....but then they tear into a Ceremony or a Warsaw or a Regret or even a Crystal that just rips your brain out and you know that they still care.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

Well done for getting it all right! (x-post)

The backdrop during 'Locomotion' reminded me of the Noize bored.

― Keith, Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:53 (eighteen years ago)

I'm glad I didn't come up for it now.

This is pretty much how I felt after the Brian Wilson show for Smile. That part was incredible, but the greatest hits crowd pleasing show that was the second half was A DIFFERENT BAND FRONTED BY A GUY WHO DIDN'T SING THE SONGS. The main difference here is that at least some of those songs were actually any good, unlike OMD's unqualified rubbing up against the leg of JohnHughesandtheAmericanTeenMarket - which brings with it UK AOR credibility - but it's still odd that for the large majority of people (who were paying over £50 for the privilege) THIS WAS THE BIT THEY CAME FOR.

― aldo, Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:54 (eighteen years ago)

It's interesting to compare this with New Order gigs of the last few years

yes, good point. i actually enjoyed NO (the "get ready" tour) more than OMD, on the whole; maybe that's because i had far lower expectations.

anyway. I MUST DO SOME WORK!

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 11:15 (eighteen years ago)

― stet, Thursday, 17 May 2007 13:22 (eighteen years ago)

!!! Does that mean the lame backdrops would have been totally shoddy AT THE TIME so can't even be excused as 'retro'?

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 13:35 (eighteen years ago)

ULTIMATELY, though, the problem here is that BBP and i are gloomy synth snobs who are pissed off because we wanted 90 minutes of tears-of-blood mellotrons and that was probably never going to happen.

This is 110% correct!

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

But I don't think you should be surprised that AM doesn't treat the earlier material with the same reverence you do. Of course he doesn't think that OMD lost their way - artists rarely do. But I agree that it jars to advertise it as A&M revisted. That's odd.

Yes I guess there's two stories here:

1) is, as Dr C points out, a common one -- and an intriguing one -- about the extent to which artists are unable to quality control their own work. I think there are artists who ARE able to do this, and KNOW that they've 'lost it'. The recent film about the Pixies is fascinating because the band clearly ALL feel just how amazing their original material is, none of them can work out quite why they've never managed to match it independently, and they're all terrified that if they tried to write together again it would be rub. But also there are artists who aren't as strong critically as they are creatively -- presumably AM is in this category.

2) The second is about the facts surrounding the reunion: I have a hunch that the A&M gimmick was neutral territory on which to meet (limited no. of shows, homage to an old album) but that things went well and they decided to cash in. Fair play to them, but they definitely gave out mixed messages.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 13:41 (eighteen years ago)

ha ha I use CAPS because I am afeared of the BBcode!

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 13:42 (eighteen years ago)

I spent an hour looking through old Amiga and ST demos to see if I was right, and I turned up pretty much 90% of those backdrops, including a suitably low-res HAM-mode picture of Louise Brown. In fact, I think the cog thing was a tutorial for a giveaway version of Lightwave 3D with Amiga Format/

Hahaha awesome. The really daft thing was that the super-primitive graphics - the rotating coloured boxes they used at the beginning - were much more effective than then rotating cogs, water drops etc.

All this thread needs now is an outraged googler!

― Pashmina, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:01 (eighteen years ago)

i've seen two other reviews and they've both agreed with us :)

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I just sat in a coffee shop and read your pal Alastair's review... Pretty much the same. Did you confer? :)

― Keith, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:21 (eighteen years ago)

Hmm. So maybe I'm not so disappointed after all.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:21 (eighteen years ago)

alastair? andrew, y'mean? no, we didn't; i was surprised that his is even angrier than mine!

Hmm. So maybe I'm not so disappointed after all

you did miss a quality night in the pub, though.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

Now that I'm disappointed in missing!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Andrew, sorry. Easy mistake to make.

― Keith, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

links to other reviews plz for those of us too lazy to google.
kthxbye.

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

ok here it is: Scotsman review

― byebyepride, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:39 (eighteen years ago)

big wad of American money
Cash comes in wads, not money. Stupid subs.

― stet, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:54 (eighteen years ago)

hur hur hur he said "comes in wads" hur

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

the other review's on last.fm, btw.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 17 May 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

who the fuck uses last fm -- it killed my beloved.

ok i am a bit pished.

ok a lot

I blame McLuskey. Forever Live and Cry dude. Fuck Tesla shit fuck. Bollocks. Time to troll the other boards.

― byebyepride, Friday, 18 May 2007 03:18 (eighteen years ago)

Look For OMD Tickets
Additional Information:
***PLUS SUPPORT FROM LOVERS ELECTRIC***
Please be aware that this performance is being filmed. By purchasing tickets you consent to being filmed.

This for Saturday night at Hammersmith Odeon.

Bit pricey, innit?

― PJ Miller, Friday, 18 May 2007 07:22 (eighteen years ago)

glasgow tix were 25 quid, which i thought was reasonable (WHEN I BOUGHT THEM, ho ho ho); what's the hammersmith odeon costing?

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 18 May 2007 10:14 (eighteen years ago)

We wuz robbed :-(

― byebyepride, Friday, 18 May 2007 10:31 (eighteen years ago)

are you still drunk? :)

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 18 May 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

Yup.

― byebyepride, Friday, 18 May 2007 11:22 (eighteen years ago)

+ the coffee is making it worse not better :-0

― byebyepride, Friday, 18 May 2007 11:23 (eighteen years ago)

I had to drown my OMD sorrows. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. This is what happens when C goes away for the night.

― byebyepride, Friday, 18 May 2007 11:27 (eighteen years ago)

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