Auckland Sounds showcased the Eighties revolutionary sound of Pop in a superlative sextet of artists. Their influence is everywhere now in the current Pop world.
They were inspired by the best, encompassing Beatlemania to Sergeant Pepper, Tutti Frutti to Anarchy in the UK.
There are those Boomers who still insist the electronica and synthesiser sounds were a degradation of the pure spirit, or Wild Gift of Rock’n’roll. But let us borrow from arch Punk literary guy Ernest Hemingway. If it feels good, it must be good!
If it hits the heart and does the hip shake, the beast with two backs is sure to follow.
The Human League plays the headline spot and depending on your personal obsessions come close to stealing the whole night.
Like sexual preference and desire, this band flipped the switch for me, and I had the debut album Dare on high rotation through that decade.
Before you spray your soy chai lattes, I know they kicked off in 1977 and had two cult albums out prior, Reproduction and Travelogue.
That was Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, and they recruited Philip Oakey to sing purely because he looked good and had a fashion sense.
Ware and Marsh went on to form Heaven-17. Oakey carried on with new project Dare and the difference was like the transformation of Fleetwood Mac with Buckingham-Nicks.
There were new synth players and engineers. The distinctive backing singers Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall enhanced the human sound inside the electronics.
This nucleus trio are the League. They look stunning as they dominate the front of stage. Immaculate outfits and Oakey has at least five costume changes.
Remember the Sex Pistols had their genesis in an arty fashion shop run by Vivienne Westwood called Sex.
On stage first are the backroom trio, as they start with Mirror Man.
Ben Smith and Nick Banks synthesisers any keytars (maybe they are hybrid versions of the Korg S7) and Rob Barton percussion. He’s playing syn-drums and there may be an analogue one in there somewhere. Engineer David Beevers is also introduced at the end.
The electronic nature of this band is emphasised. All the rest tonight is guitar based.
Sound of the Crowd has the keytar come forward to play those trademark bass lines, as if the strings are high voltage pylon cables. An orgasmic finish echoing the rhythm.
Open Your Heart throw up some early Joe Meek riffs. Seconds, Love Action, Fascination, Don’t You Want Me, take us back into hedonistic times of American Psycho.
The Lebanon is prescient. Bombs explode on the backing screen, as army tanks are attacked.
Being Boiled is a bonus. The first single from 1978 and Oakey wrote the lyrics. Heavy subsonic sounds vibrate through the viscera. Visuals resembling Mayan codices.
Listen to the Sun Gods/ Listen to the voice of Buddha.
Nik Kershaw is one of the most successful Pop artists from the UK. His set consists of his biggest hits from 1984 to 1989. He therefore gets a rapturous reception from the enthusiastic crowd, as they sing along to many.
He goes from melodic inspirational Pop to Techno Dance. Roped into what was termed New Wave on the back of the Punk explosion, so he can claim that too.
He has a Boy Band tenor vocal style which branches out from there. More in common with the male singers from Motown when they relocated to Los Angeles (from Detroit), in the manner of DeBarge and probably the phrasing of the young Michael Jackson. He was a freak, admittedly.
Motown is an influence on most of the artists tonight.
Don Quixote may start with some Rock guitar licks, but there are South African Soweto drumbeats, and it shifts into upbeat Ska.
A shift to Techno Dance (the guitars are banished) with (bring on the) Dancing Girls. That metronomic beat was a classic definition of Eighties music.
Remember this was the period of a seemingly endless bull market stock exchange run until the inevitable 1989 crash.
When a Heart Beats has a soulful Pop voice, and the left-handed lead guitarist gets to add some heavier Rock licks.
I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down is one of my favourites, and it starts with the sound of Scottish Highlands and the echoes of Big Country in a folkie vein. But that Ska rhythm comes back to end up a nice little raver.
Sixty-five weeks dominating the British singles chart from 1984 to !985 is an impressive feat.
Go West are the third UK band tonight, and lead singer Peter Cox, and guitarist Richard Drummie established themselves as a Pop duo as early as 1982.
Cox stood out as a great blue-eyed Soul voice at the time. Many in the crowd around me feel he was the best singer tonight.
It is a very close call, too hard for me.
Both Go West and Nik Kershaw use the same backing musicians on lead guitar, keyboards, bass guitar and drums.
Versatile and they perform in the same fashion as the Come Together ensemble that have become the premier all-purpose support band in New Zealand for those now legendary local shows.
Don’t Look Down leads off and Cox gets everyone’s attention with his passionate delivery and the stage presence that he garners with it.
Call Me is a perfect example of white Pop Soul, distinctive of the Eighties era. Which we are all wallowing in like crocodiles rockin’. Queen Elton of John must be an influence on all these artists with his genius for melody along with his voice. Nik Kershaw has worked with him.
They cover Tracks of my Tears. The William Smokey Robinson classic, co-written by Marvin Tarplin who gives it a melodic lyrical genius. It requires a great singer to do it justice, and Cox pushes his vocals high and wrings the emotion out of it.
We Close Our Eyes is another off their debut. You can sense the Motown in their DNA. There is enough Funk in the groove to make it a dance-floor filler.
These Brits would all have been raised on Northern Soul, I am confidently and outrageously assuming. The Beatles called their song publishing company Northern Songs.
One of their biggest hits is King of Wishful Thinking, which they go out on. The bass player lays out a doubled-up bass line in the best James Jamerson fashion, which the singer can ride on.
Motown aimed squarely at the white audience for their success in the Sixties. These bands tonight carry that legacy.
The Mockers are one of the most beloved Eighties Pop bands in New Zealand, and many people have made the trip to see them especially. That includes some ex-pat Kiwis in the audience.
I saw them then, in their heyday. And I saw them in 2020 in March, just before the Lockdown. That date is important, and the capital letter is accurate.
They had reconvened to open for Midge Ure, who was playing the Vienna album in it’s entirety.
Midge has announced from the stage. We are here to celebrate 1980, a special time for creativity in music.
Absolutely, and here we all are like children at the Glory River. Gonna wash you up and wash you down/ Gonna lay that devil down. (Save the Country, Laura Nyro)
The Mockers opened for them. Andrew Fagan was wearing his crown, which he brought out for the last song tonight.
I’m going to plagiarise my own writing and say he resembled a younger Keith Richard, which he does tonight also. I named him Andrew Glimmer Triplet.
He said it was a special reunion and they may do it again in six years. Well, it’s four years on but the unprecedented brutal Control Virus behaviour means Now! is their time.
I recognise ace guitarist Bret Adams up there (a key member of the Come Together ensemble), but I cannot be sure that the bass player, keyboards, and drummer are the same. They probably are.
He does his best to ape Philip Oakey, who we don’t see until the final act. Swathed in white from head to toe, looking like a mummy. Wearing a dark green heavy velvet overcoat with black borders.
He prowls the stage, scowls intensely, then grins. Displays his hair-trigger temper which is part of the performance. Channels a king, Richard the Third on a Globe stage.
Sprays water in the face of Adams whilst he is taking a solo. That’s for getting too big for your boots!
His vocal performance is at least as good opening for Midge Ure (comes from Jim spelt backwards). But there is a special level of inspiration tonight, around all the clowning. He may sense many have come to relive their youth through the Mockers as a portal.
Swear it’s True and Alvison Park are great jangle Pop songs, and Fagan still has that distinctive Kiwi accent.
Shield Yourself is a Pop ballad and is a fine example of his (still) fine singing.
Manners Street was a rage in its time and the band get all arty Punk. I suppose that is New Wave. The band formed in 1979 but they were not Punk Rockers.
Forever Tuesday Morning is of course a classic for all generations. The closest New Zealand song in recent times is Jump Rope Gazers by the Beths.
Choirboys
These middle-aged Ocker Rockers remind me of AC-DC in their power chords and general balls-out guitar and tight rhythmic assault.
That is a compliment. I did some due diligence, looked inside their budgie-smugglers, and found they got signed to Albert Records at the start. They came to the attention of George Young. An Easybeat in the Sixties, but more importantly the older brother to Angus Young and Malcolm Young.
Of course, he produced the early AC-DC albums, all regarded as classics now. His presence must be there with these Choirboys.
Opening songs, I Was the Boy Then and One Perfect Day. The have the guitar textures of the Ramones and reflect the pedigree of the guitar bands which led to up to the New York seminal Punks.
Yer Glam Rock, and yer T-Rex, Sweet and Slade. Bubble Gum will be there somewhere.
A fun band to listen to, and singer Mark Gable has a keen Aussie sense of humour. He looks a little like Elvis.
That’s Costello. A little geeky with big specs.
They do a tribute song to Christine Amphlett, outrageous singer with the Divinyls, called Gasoline.
Did you see her burn like gasoline? / Did you see her explode like gasoline?
Boys Will Be Boys is a huge nod to the Scottish-Aussie mega band. This is a song about people with penises. Lad Rock and the lyrics get a PC make-over. Boys will be boys/ Boys will be girls/ Girls will be boys.
Totally appropriate to lampoon stupidity.
Run to Paradise is a great Power Pop song and Gable lets loose. Somehow, he makes it a shout-out to Pop Queens Swift and Perry.
Richard Ernest Rikki Morris is a local who I have not heard about for years, so that was a surprise to see him open this Auckland Sounds show.
He is a highly regarded sound engineer, and I must have heard some of that on the hundreds of shows I have attended in the last twenty years.
He is the younger brother to Ian Morris who played with Th’Dudes. He was their roadie.
He played guitar for the Crocodiles subsequently.
Tonight, he plays with a mate on electric guitar whilst he plays acoustic and delivers some fine Kiwi-styled Pop vocals.
Heartbroke especially so, which won him an Apra Silver Scroll award.
Just as good is his song Nobody Else. The electric guitar can imitate a slide dobro.
He calls The Game of Love a Tex Pistol song. That’s his brother’s alter-ego. Of course, it was written by Clint Ballard Jr and first recorded by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders in 1965.
A little bit of the Louie,Louie riff and quite a lot of Bo Diddley in there. Many other versions including one by Santana.
Auckland Sounds was a feast of classic Eighties Pop music which became a gourmands glutton banquet. Astonishingly it did not flag in energy at any stage over close to six hours.
That’s The Human League, Go West, Nik Kershaw, The Mockers, Choirboys and Rikki Morris.
Rev. Orange Peel