I attended the Wolverhampton leg of the Steel City Tour last night. Here’s how it panned out: -
First on, (bang on 7:30) were Heaven 17. Martyn Ware on keyboards, Glenn Gregory lead vocals, two female vocalists, one drummer & one on guitars. Always tough to come on first to what was about a 2/3 full venue, they gave a very polished and professional performance. Glenn Gregory was very charismatic in his waistcoat and fedora, gliding around the stage flashing an unbelievably white smile (may have been the ultra-violet light
). The whole performance was full of energy, and the female vocalists were superb. They played eight tracks, and I think I recognised seven of them. Here are the seven, hopefully in the correct order (sorry Martin - no pen and paper!)
1 (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang
2 Crushed By the Wheels of Industry
3 Geisha Boys and Temple Girls
4 I 'm Gonna Make You Fall In Love With Me
5 Penthouse and Pavement
6 Come Live With Me
7 Temptation
Of course they had to finish with Temptation. This version seemed to go on for about 10 minutes. They got a rousing send-off at the end from the now very full venue. A great start to the evening.
Quite surprised that about half the audience seemed to be women. Unlike my last visit to this venue, I was seated up in the centre of the balcony with a perfect view of the stage. Glad I was seated; I’ve had flu symptoms since Tuesday and a pounding headache had convinced me I was not going to attend the show. Managed to get some extra strong Ibuprofen at the last moment which just about allowed me to make the trip. Thankfully, my wife was driving.
The stage hands (apparently 25 in total) then worked furiously to remove the Heaven 17 gear and wheel out the ABC stuff. About 15 minutes later out they came. Martin Fry vocals, 2 on guitars, two on keyboards (one of these doubling up on saxophone) , one on drums and one lady who seemed to be very overworked: vocals, two sets of hand drums, tambourine, and some chimes, and probably something else that I didn’t recognise. I think they performed 11 songs, including Poison Arrow, How To Be A Millionaire, All Of My Heart, and finishing with When Smokey Sings and The Look Of Love.
The performance was more laid back and subdued than Heaven 17s, but Martin Fry’s voice seemed as strong as ever. Again a rousing send-off.
On with the stage hands again, but this time they cleared absolutely everything, including the stage carpet. On the now bare white stage, they just placed three mike stands.
Heaven 17 & ABC had been operating on the front half of the stage only, so all the preparatory action was going on behind very large curtains on the back half of the stage.
About 30 minutes later the curtains dropped to reveal a two-tier set with blinding neon backdrop. Out comes Phil Oakey in sunglasses and leather coat and opens with Seconds before being joined by Joanne and Susan for Mirror Man. You are immediately left in no doubt that this night belongs to the Human League. Adding to the main three, on the upper tier is a drummer, one on keyboards and one who covers keyboards and guitar. And so they went through a succession of their greatest hits covering most of thier career. Phil was on the move constantly, shifting to every corner of the stage and even climbing on top of some of the upper tier instruments at one stage. The girls exited the stage for Empire State Human (but Martyn Ware did not appear!). Phil did acknowledge the contribution of Martyn and Ian Craig Marsh to this song before commencing.
The back-drop provided superb images for each song. For the Sound Of The Crowd, it was political figures, whose faces would merge into one another, right from Margaret Thatcher to Barrack Obama. I think they did something similar on the Dare! Tour last year. Also, they used shots from the film Scanners as the back-drop to Being Boiled just as on the Dare! Tour. All in all another slick showing from the League.
The main set was completed with Don’t You Want Me Baby. After much cheering and chanting we were treated to a 2 song encore.
Here is the set list, (the middle part is almost certainly not in the correct order): -
1. Seconds
2. Mirror Man
3. Open Your Heart
4. (Keep Feeling) Fascination
5. Empire State Human
6. The Lebanon
7. Louise
8. The Sound Of The Crowd
9. Tell Me When
10. Love Action
11. Don’t You Want Me
Encore
12. Being Boiled (no Martyn Ware here either!)
13. Together In Electric Dreams
Apart from feeling as rough as a piece of sand paper, I had a great night. Thanks Mr Ibuprofen for making it possible.