We are at O2 Ritz Manchester as Thomas Dolby rolls through on a rare UK tour. Support comes from Prefab Sprout’s Martin McAloon.
JUST A FAN…
Prior to the show, there are many Thomas Dolby fans out in force. Meets at The Salisbury (around the corner) are in full flow and the queues snake around Whitworth Street.
Talk of who has seen who, where and when, can be heard in all corners with a hint of one-upmanship from many. For any enduring artist, the fans are what make them. It is clear that Thomas Dolby fans are cut from the same cloth as Gary Numan’s Numanoids. I am unsure of the collective term for Thomas Dolby fans though (answers on a postcard!)
MARTIN MCALOON
“Hello Manchester – I’ve not done anything yet!” says McAloon as he enters the stage to applause. From the off, there is a humming issue with his amp. He is deals with the issue in a self deprecating way.
Cowboy Dreams is up first. It is played on a gorgeous golden Gretsch (McAloon has a quartet of guitars on his tail). Played delicately, there is a real intimacy. Maybe sensing the crowd that are not entirely immersed, McAloon asks people to sing along; “y’aint gonna spoil my fun!”
As a website, we at At The Barrier pride ourselves on positivity however there are quite a few sections of the crowd that are relentless in their chatter. Yes, you’ve got your ticket and it’s a free country, but it would be nice to show more respect to the artist and other people who have tickets. If you’re not bothered by the music, step out, or arrive later.
THE CLASSICS
McAloon continues to deliver a set of high quality songs from the Prefab Sprout back catalogue. Carnival 2000 has a jazzy feel in its playing. There are a few fluffed notes here and there; McAloon jokes that if you make a mistake three times, it’s call jazz! His patter is endearing and the songs are top class.
When Love Breaks Down, The King Of Rock N Roll and Faron Young are all aired. Those in attendance and fully tuned in, reciprocate in a great ovation. These are some of the best pop songs ever written. The King Of Rock N Roll is particularly brilliant. The ‘hot dog’ chorus line sounds superb amongst the crowd as McAloon conducts. With songs full of great harmony, melody and hooks, it is hard not to enjoy a brilliant warm up set like this.
Martin McAloon continues to tour the music of Prefab Sprout in the UK and Ireland later in the year. His tour dates are here.
THOMAS DOLBY
Making his name in the 1980’s and being attached the New Wave movement, Thomas Dolby has never slowed down with productivity. A forward thinker, he played as part of David Bowie’s band at Live Aid and worked with the genius that is George Clinton.
Nods to both are on show this evening. A take on Bowie’s Heroes is particularly poignant. Dolby shares personal pictures and memories of that day at Wembley in 1985. His take on the song is unique and interesting. The Clinton penned Hot Sauce is a highlight in opening the encore. You can tell that the lyric is Clinton’s and the bouncy nature of the song is a lot of fun.
2024 sees Thomas Dolby celebrate 40 years of The Flat Earth. The title track allows Dolby to showcase his singing. The voice is in fine fettle tonight. Originally released in 1984, the album contains one of Dolby’s most well known pieces, in Hyperactive. Naturally, it draws a huge reaction from the crowd as the video for the single flanks the stage.
It is the same set up for Dolby’s monster hit, She Blinded Me With Science. The video is wonderfully bizarre and the layering of the sounds is masterful. Watching Thomas Dolby move from different parts of the stage as front man back to behind his hefty set of kit as composer is brilliant. ‘Science’ has a wonderful karaoke twist with Hilary Clinton, JFK and Aaron Paul’s Breaking Bad character Jesse offering up lyrics for the song.
THE MODERN TOUCH
Moving songs forward in this way is a lot of fun. The sound is superbly crisp; the songs sound energetic. Evil Twin Brother causes a technical problem but the thumping beat and twisted electro sounds owe a lot to other electronic pioneers like Orbital and Kraftwerk. Spice Train fits into this bracket, as well as Blue Monday. The New Order classic is what Dolby opens with; it is the perfect opener for a crowd in Manchester! My Brain Is Like A Sieve has the modern touch with Jason Mraz on vocals.
Budapest By Blimp is like Dolby’s Trans-Europe Express (Kraftwerk). Images from the great city fill the screen. Another song that has an ethereal quality is I Love You Goodbye. Dolby and his piano work is dazzling – it is at moments like this that you realise what an absolute polymath you are in the presence of. More experimentation is audible with One Of Our Submarines being mashed up with Numan’s Cars and The Cure’s Lovesong.
A parting cut comes in the form of Airwaves before Dolby leaves the stage and heads to sign copies of his new novel; Prevailing Wind. It had been 12 years since Dolby last played Manchester. Let’s hope it isn’t another 12 before we are graced with his talent once more.
Thomas Dolby: Website / Facebook
Martin McAloon: Website
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Categories: Live Reviews
It was a great gig but very disappointed in the setlist. All everybody wanted was a Golden Age of Wireless / Flat Earth compilation. Hot sauce for an encore, seriously? No Radio Silence or Windpower is a travesty.
It was certainly a bit odd. Starting the gig by telling the audience that he probably shouldn’t leave it another 12 years between visits because some of them look like they won’t make it is not particularly endearing. There were obviously a few issues which he went full on colonial about by declaring that “I’ve got jinxed sneakers, man” (You’re in Manchester, mate, not Los Angeles). His musicianship was unquestionably outstanding but I couldn’t help but feel as if the event was a little bit phoned in. The David Bowie tribute was very good but you can see it on YouTube and the script was pretty much identical. A great gig is where it is personal to that audience and, unfortunately, it failed to deliver on that front. It was a decent gig but it could have been so much more.
Firstly, the venue was a hellhole. It was overfilled to the extent I and others couldn’t see the stage. The floor was full and those who got to the balcony edges got the view, the rest stood or sat behind. It was hot. And the sound quality, perhaps depending on where you were, was far from ‘crisp’. It didn’t surprise me when a fan needed medical assistance during the concert, I even predicted it would happen. Cups of water had to be handed out.
The jobsworth at the door wouldn’t let me take in my “professional camera”, an SLR, but in the end I couldn’t take a single picture with even a mobile because I couldn’t see anything. The place seems set up to make everyone hot so they buy expensive drinks and block all manner of things so they can fleece you with cloakroom fees. I couldn’t believe that Thomas Dolby would have his increasingly venerable fans standing in a place like this listening to Martin McAloon and then his own set. He even alluded to our advancing years, possibly because he feels follicly rejuvenated.
Secondly, while he can still sing he was far from being in good voice, he was notably pitchy on some of the lead-ins. I winced. And while he is a brilliant producer, his musicianship was questionable when a technical issue due to a “computer’ halted the show, revealing that most of the set was preprogrammed. Howard Jones would’ve carried on. Dolby promised he would make it up to the crowd, the place having to clear by 11, but he’d arrived late on stage, quite a gap after McAloon.
The set list was a self-indulgence, he said how he was tired of appearing at US 80s gigs where he had to do the hits and had 25 minutes, so he was going to do the songs he liked to play, and treated his fans to an overlong Budapest By Blimp, an unpopular B-side and omitted Windpower. Even when included, a cracking song like One Of Our Submarines lost the naval ships’ horns, so evocative of a search and rescue operation, and instead Gary Numan’s Cars was mashed in, presumably because Numan played at this venue. Sorry Gary, he said, but it was the audience who needed the apology. The wonderful That’s Why People Fall In Love could have had Ofra Haza’s vocals playing, unless there was a contractual issue.
There were 3 songs in a row which seemed heavy on a remixed Latin American beat and made it feel like a whizzkid surprising everyone with what can be achieved on a Bontempi on a Saga cruise ship stage, and were at odds with the bristling futurist way the concert began. And then it deteriorated even further when Jason Mraz dueted on My Brain Is Like A Sieve, his intro explanation making it sound as if he was desperate for street cred with generationally younger fans, if he can randomly find them (there were two even younger ones at the front). If this was intended to make him sound cool it had the exact opposite effect as Mraz smoothly sang like a boy bander. Will Westlife do Quantum Mechanic?
When I did briefly glimpse him, as he snake-hipped in travelling light sneakers towards the front of the stage, I didn’t feel starstruck, I think because of his radical change in appearance, it seemed more like he was one of the stage crew.
All-in-all this was a bit of an underwhelming disappointment. Me and a partner left before the encore, I studiously avoided all temptation to buy one of Dolby’s books at a merchandise signing, promoted by Dolby on stage, and when someone was handing out free souvenir posters in the street I walked straight past.