Last Tuesday I took my sister to see Madness in concert as a belated birthday present, which further continued our musical trip through the 80’s. Madness had come to San Diego recently, but I just never had the opportunity to see them. When this concert came up, the timing was perfect again for my sister’s birthday and as a show to tide me over until the Rewind Festival in August later this year (although, I may have to see Squeeze with the B52’s in June to really get me through the summer).
I spent the week listening to Madness songs, just to get myself familiar with their music again. Because all of my Madness albums are on vinyl, I had to download quite a bit on iTunes (I own the Yesterday’s Men 12″ single, Keep Moving and Complete Madness). I’m really only familiar with their hits, and there are quite a few that they put out in just about one decade.
The show opened with “One Step Beyond” (no opening act) and the whole concert was bouncing off the walls the entire time. We were certainly glad that the venue was outdoors because we definitely got a good workout from all of the dancing! Although I was familiar with what I thought was a good amount of songs for the concert, I quickly realized that what I knew only scratched the surface (there were around seven that I was not familiar with and they only played around 16 songs). I still was able to hear songs I love like “The Sun & The Rain”, “Our House”, “It Must Be Love”, “Baggy Trousers” and “House of Fun”. They sounded amazing and their banter was so much fun. Chrissy Boy even came out and did a cover of The Gap Band’s “Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me)”. Their encore set was “Night Boat to Cairo” and “Madness”, and the show ended with a of a mob of people jumping onstage and dancing. Though I was a bit sad that I didn’t get to hear “Wings of a Dove” and “Keep Moving”, my sister and I had so much fun and would love to see them again. I failed to fully charge my Flip Cam prior to the concert, but I was able to capture “My Girl” before the battery ran out. Enjoy!
(Photos 2 & 3 by Rholnna Jiao)