Tag Archives: Humphreys by the Bay

House of Fun: Madness in Concert

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)

If You Don’t Know This Next Song, You’re at the Wrong Gig!

Hooray for set lists!

A couple of Sundays ago, my sister and I saw OMD again, this time at the beautiful Humphreys by the Bay.  I already reviewed this concert earlier this year (see post here), so I’m just going to touch on the highlights of this fun concert.  People were definitely happy in the haze of a drunken few hours, yours truly included.  The opening act from Australia called Washington, was oh so good.  Lead singer, Megan Washington has a hauntingly beautiful voice and is quite the comedian (“I’ve never played at a gig like this, or seen so many ducks!”).  I don’t know much about them, but I really enjoyed their set and you can be sure that I’ll be on the look out for more.

Smiles partially induced by Stella Artois

Aussie awesomeness: Washington

Then OMD came out as if unleashed, with all of the enthusiasm and energy they had back in March.  Andy McCluskey thoughtfully stated that this venue was lovely but “far too sophisticated” and reminiscent of a high school graduation (funny, Alan Wilder said the exact same thing about his Recoil gig last year).  By the encore, he had encouraged the crowd to “rush the stage”, which just meant a surge forward of stumbling intoxicated middle-aged one time New Wavers.  I don’t remember it being so difficult back in the 80’s.

(Please note that this time, I finally got to meet DJ extraordinaire, Steve West of 91X.  Hard to believe that I first listened to him back in 1983 at the tender age of 13!)

A song that was definitely included in this set because Andy mentioned that they received hate mail for not including it previously was “Secret”, to which the crowd enthusiastically sang word for word.  My sister was quite delighted because it’s her all time favorite and because the lead vocals were provided by Paul Humphreys (Andy jokingly stated that he owned the venue).  I would have included it here, except that the song was practically drowned out by some fantastically inebriated fans next to us.

Please find below a song that I did capture quite well, “If You Leave”.  Andy introduced it by saying “If you don’t know this next song, you’re at the wrong gig!”  Yes sir, a perfect post title was built right in, enjoy!