If you haven’t read the first two parts of this review of this concert with many great New Wave music artists of the 1980s. Part 1 gives the lead up to the show talks about the Lost 80’s Merch and part 2 reviews the first six artists of the evening.
The Vapors – Father and Son Rocking Together
Most famous for their 1980 hit “Turning Japanese”, Richard Blade mentioned that The Vapors hadn’t toured Japan at the height of their success before introducing the band. The Vapors had two of their original members David Fenton (lead singer) and Steve Smith (bass). The band also included David’s son Dan on lead guitar. They also had a relatively new drummer since their drummer fell ill during the tour.
The Vapors were another band where I’ve only prievously heard their one hit. I was pleasantly surprised by the other songs they performed “News at Ten” which Dan had mentioned that David wrote about not relating to his father. “Jimmie Jones” was about the monster that led his followers to commit suicide. “Waiting for the Weekend” was another great song. The crowd went wild when “Turning Japanese” started.
Since I was at the concert with my son, it was awesome seeing the enjoyment of father and son playing together. You could tell they had a great love and respect for each other.
General Public – Setup Delays Mean We Miss a Song
Richard Blade, when introducing General Public, talked about how he and Dave Wakeling were great friends and often spend time together. I helped back Dave’s most recent English Beat album “Here We Go Love” through crowd funding a couple years ago; Dave just seems like a great guy. Richard Blade mentioned that this was the first extensive tour as General Public in decades.
I’m a huge English Beat/General Public/Dave Wakeling fan and have been so since I first saw/heard them on Richard Blade’s video show MV3 back in the day. Since 2004, I have seen The English Beat/General Public perform four times before this show. I always look forward to seeing Dave with his iconic teardrop guitar.
Dave and his band were great as usual, however there were some setup delays that obviously had Dave frustrated. Sadly, it looks like the delays forced them to cut a song from their set. We didn’t get to see “Never You Done That” which had been performed on the rest of the tour.
Leading into their set, Richard started playing “Liquidator” by the Harry J Allstars. He mentioned that this was the song that The Beat always used to come out to. Soon after that song finished the band broke into “Hot You’re Cool”. They then performed their cover of “I’ll Take You There” before finishing up with “Tenderness”. The band was great and Toaster Antonee First Class did a great job riling up the crowd.
Big Country – They Had More Original Members than Lynyrd Skynyrd or Foreigner
So apparently there are two versions of Big Country, one led by guitarist Bruce Watson and another by drummer Mark Brzezicki. The Brzezicki version was who was on this tour. Overall, they did a great job and sounded like what we all expect from Big Country. The crowd was mostly on their feet for the entire four song set especially for the mega-hit “In A Big Country”.
Mark Brzezicki also played drums for some of the other artists during the evening including The Icicle Works. According to the Lost 80’s Live website Chris Lehye formerly of The Icicle Works was the bass player for Big Country on this tour.
Around 10 pm, the Flock of Seagulls took the stage. And Mike Score, he of the famous hair, is COMPLETELY BALD! My mom wouldn’t let me do my hair like him back when I was 12 but now all these years later, he and I finally have very similar hairstyles (but I have more hair now!).
They opened the set with “The More That You Live the More That You Love” from their third album and their last hit song. They then played “Some Dreams” , their newest single, which was very good. Next were two of their biggest songs: “Space Age Love Song” and “Wishing (I Had a Photograph of You)” Mike Score and band then closed out the show with their 1982 mega hit “I Ran (So Far Away)”. I think the entire crowd was singing along to the song.
Kevin Rankin – A Show Within the Show
Earlier in the evening Richard Blade had introduced Kevin Rankin who was the drummer for The Flock of Seagulls and mentioned that the crowd would enjoy his energetic drumming. Kevin promised to give a drumstick to a young man who was at the show with a Mike Score type hairdo when Richard introduced him.
Kevin’s playing did not disappoint, he reminded me of Keith Moon. At one point he threw a drumstick to the side of the stage while playing. I think that was the promised stick to give the kid. He also caught a drumstick thrown from the side of the stage while not missing a beat. Kevin was quite the show within the show. Kudos to him!
Richard Blade – The Perfect Host
I have been a fan of Richard Blade since I was 11 years old in 1982 and first saw his show MV3. Through MV3 and his other TV shows and eventually through KROQ (we could finally pick up their signal by 1983 or 1984) and now through SiriusXM, Richard has introduced me to so many bands and educated me so much on New Wave Music. I remember seeing Oingo Boingo perform on one of his video shows, which instantly made me a lifelong fan. I actually got to meet Danny Elfman while working at a bank when I went to college.
We have been SiriusXM (then just Sirius) subscribers since 2004, just before Richard returned to the airwaves. I listen to Richard Blade every evening while driving home and we usually catch him on the weekends while running errands or doing stuff around the house. Basically, I have probably watched or listened to Richard the majority of the days of my life, so it was a great honor earlier in the year when we met Richard before the Howard Jones/ABC show in Dallas.
Richard was so in his element as the host of this show, his passion for this music and love of these artists is readily apparent. In addition to some of the segments I mentioned that he did earlier. Richard also talked about the top New Wave bands of all time. He joked about how they would have added Morrissey, but he wouldn’t have shown up so he had to pick The Smiths instead.
I can totally vouch for that as I have had Morrissey cancel two shows that I bought tickets to and was at the infamous UCLA concert in 1991. The show only lasted a few songs before Morrissey basically started a riot by telling people they didn’t need to stay in their seats. Finally, nearly 43 years to the day later, I saw almost an entire Morrissey concert in Dallas. We got the entire main set in before the show ended early during the encore because of people jumping on stage.
During one break, Richard measured the audience reaction to playing more Culture Club or Thompson Twins on SirisusXM and another time should they play more music between U2 and The Police. Thompson Twins won the first audience poll and The Police won the second one.
A Fun Evening of New Wave Music Nostalgia
Overall, my son and I had a great time at the show. I have to say that The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory parking is one of the easier in the area to get out of and his quick easy access to the freeway, from the time the show ended to getting home was less than 45 minutes.
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2 thoughts on “Lost 80’s Live Concert Review – Irving, TX (Part 3)”
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Howdy David,
How can I get in contact with you? I have some fun information from the show in Irving.
Paul, I just sent you a couple of emails…David