LYNN — In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan implored Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” We didn’t care. We were walking on sunshine, more concerned with the lines “I’ll stop the world and melt with you” and “Sooner or later, your legs give way, you hit the ground.” Our self-absorbed younger selves were focused on dancing to the beat-crazy, modern sounds of Modern English, the English Beat and other alternative bands of the day at Spit nightclub on Lansdowne Street in Boston.
Here we are 30 years later and another U.S. president has an antagonistic relationship with a Russian leader and is talking about building a wall.
But for nearly four hours Monday night, we didn’t care. The Retro Futura Tour, featuring six ’80s New Wave acts, came to Lynn Auditorium and turned a capacity crowd of AARP-eligible music lovers into dancing fools. Everything old is new again.
Headliner Howard Jones prefaced his ode to optimism, “Things Can Only Get Better,” with “We sing this song only when things get really, really bad. It can happen to any of us at any time, sometimes it can happen to a whole country.” The audience roared and cathartically screamed out the lyrics.
That’s as political as the night got. Instead, fans were singing and grooving to opener Katrina Leskanich, former frontwoman of Katrina and the Waves, and band’s rocking versions of “Walking on Sunshine” and “Going Down to Liverpool,” which she wrote and became a hit for the Bangles.
English blue-eyed-soul singer Paul Young followed with four-song blink-and-it’s-over set of crowd favorites that included “Come Back and Stay” and his number-one cover of Hall & Oates’ “Everytime You Go Away.” His voice remains smooth and strong, but he didn’t perform “Wherever I Lay My Hat” and “Love of the Common People.” Sacrilege!
Six-piece Modern English, dressed all in white, was the night’s edgiest act. Robbie Grey’s band started out as a post-punk/pop outfit in the Joy Division mold, and much of their set was a hard-rocking, slightly abrasive collection of songs that stood in dark contrast to their lovey-dovey megahit “I Melt With You.” The audience loved them. Me? Meh.
Few acts are as frenetically danceable as the Beat (English Beat in America). Dave Wakeling and his nine-piece ska orchestra performed a way-too-short set that started with “Mirror in the Bathroom,” a herky-jerky ska that featured honking sax by Matt Moorish and energetic “toasting” by emcee King Schascha. “Tenderness,” a hit for Wakeling’s other band General Public, was gloriously sloppy. “I Confess” and fast-and-furious 10-minute “Save it for Later” were spectacular, the crowd hopping and bopping to the revved-up Beat. The lesser-known “Never Die” was a disappointing closer, too slow and lethargic.
Men Without Hats was the show’s biggest happy surprise. Charismatic frontman Ivan Doroschuk and his three bandmates boldly opened with their best-known song, “Safety Dance,” which beckoned fans to “dance if you want to.” They did … for the entire set. Doroschuk prowled the stage like an amped-up Richard Simmons cheerleader clone during New Wave firestarters “I Got the Message” and the deliriously catchy “Pop Goes the World” and a winning cover of ABBA’s “SOS” in Peter Gabriel prog-rock style. It’s usually lame to repeat a song, but the closing extended remix of “Safety Dance” was pure fun.
Electronic music pioneer Jones, often playing a keytar as he bounced about, and his top-notch band performed nearly every song casual fans would want to hear (audience sing-along “No One is to Blame,” “Everlasting Love,” “What is Love” and “New Song”) and a few deep album cuts for devotees.
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