Lost 80’s Live Concert Review – Irving, TX (Part 1)

Lost 80’s Live Concert – Ten New Wave Music Artists in One Concert

On Sunday August 17th, 2025 at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas my 15 year old son and I attended the Lost 80’s Live concert tour. The show was hosted by legendary KROQ and current SiriusXM First Wave DJ, Richard Blade. The concert featured the following New Wave music artists:

• A Flock of Seagulls
• General Public
• The Vapors
• Big Country
• China Crisis
• (The) Icicle Works
• Belouis Some
• Josie Cotton
• The Polecats
• Peter Godwin

I wasn’t sure about going to this concert. Other than A Flock of Seagulls, General Public and Big Country I wasn’t sure I knew more than one song from any of the artists. I decided since I’ve never seen any of these acts other the General Public (Dave Wakeling/English Beat) before, why not. Additionally, all of these artists other than Josie Cotton are British, so many don’t tour here often if at all.

Lost 80’s Live Concert Playlist

A couple of weeks before the Lost 80’s Live concert, I created a playlist based on what these stalwarts of New Wave music had on their set list on the tour. I added a few extra songs from the headliners like The Flock of Seagulls. I then started to listen to the playlist several times leading up to the show. Overall, I was pretty impressed with these songs, many of which I had never heard before. I was excited to discover some New Wave Music I wasn’t familiar with.

Arriving For the Lost 80’s Live Concert

We arrived early to the Lost 80’s Live concert venue as we were hoping Richard Blade would do a meet and greet before the show. He had mentioned on his satellite radio show about meeting people for pictures and signing books at other stops right when the doors opened. We brought both versions of his book, World In My Eyes to hopefully get signed. I will have to do a review of his book some time. We ended up being among the first handful to enter. However, there was a paid meet and greet after the show at this stop so alas, he didn’t come out.

Tons of Cool Merch From These New Wave Music Bands

When we entered there was a huge merch area to the right. There was also a photo backdrop with the Lost 80’s Live logo for selfies and pictures. They had shirts for all the bands and Richard Blade as well as multiple shirts for the tour itself. There were 80’s retro buttons for sale that we later learned were being sold for the first time that evening.

The booth also had signed items on sale like a tour poster signed by Richard Blade and most of the artists. We will go into more detail on that in a later story. They also had albums for sale where the proceeds would go to Juvenile Diabetes, as the tour’s founder raises money for that organization since his daughter has that affliction.

I bought a tour t-shirt with all the bands and tour stops as well as an Icicle Works t-shirt with some of the lyrics to “Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)” on the back. My son picked a retro looking shirt with a humorous reworking of the ‘I Want My MTV’ poster featuring the tour name instead. We called my wife to see what she would like and described all the shirts to her and she settled on the Polecats T-Shirt with “Make a Circuit” on it. After determining Richard Blade wasn’t coming out to say hello and finding our seats, we came back and purchased the signed poster for my son.

Toyota Music Pavillion – Nice Venue in the Heart of Metroplex

This is the second time I saw a show at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory having seen Jane’s Addiction there the previous August. Both times the lawn area was closed so the back doors of the theater were closed and the air conditioning was on. For this show, they moved anybody that bought seats in the furthest back seating area up to the front as that section was curtained off as well. We found our seats in Section 2, Row R on the left side of the stage.

While waiting for the show, they played a lot of 80’s New Wave classics over the theater sound system to pump up the crowd. I remember songs by New Order, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, The Cure among others. Richard Blade came out on stage about 6pm. He mentioned all the shirts people were wearing with different 80’s bands on them and talked about the upcoming show. I had on my Simple Minds t-shirt, while my son had on his OMD shirt.

Richard Blade talked about visiting Dallas and mentioned that his lovely wife, Krista was at the show. She had flown out from LA to visit him and were staying with some friends in the area. They visited the Book Depository and JFK memorial and also AT&T stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. He said this was the first public show he had done in Dallas. However, we just saw him a few months earlier at the Music Hall at Fair Park for Howard Jones and ABC. Richard “Don’t You Forget (About Us)”.

I’ll post the rest of the review of the show in additional posts. I have lots of pictures and videos from to share from these legends of New Wave Music.