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!