http://www.omd-messages.co.uk/omd/john-foxx-the-maths-to-support-omd-for-english-electric-tour/

Excellent news.

I was thinking of going to the OMD gig in Liverpool. I definately will be now!!

The good thing is that this will make the OMD virtually unmissible.
The bad thing is that there's no Brighton date and the tickets cost £40 each, so with train fares for two to the Roundhouse it's gonna cost over £100. Oh my poor wallet!

Fantastic news - I was unsure whether to go and see OMD but this has made the decision for me!

I've decided to take my 9 year old son - his first Foxx experience

I've just changed my mind again and bought tickets to Brum.

I'm seated way up in the sky which will make a change.

Brian

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I think OMD would be an excellent warm up band for John Foxx (plus all collaborations), so this is kind of bittersweet news! Nevertheless, hope you all have your tour t-shirts pre-printed and ready for the gigs!!

English Electric

It will be good - sickened that I'll 95.89999999% not be able to make it this time!

Actually I might go see them in *margate* for a laff!

Shame they do no support for the Hamburg gig.
I saw OMD on their last two gigs in Hamburg , so no UK show for me this time.
I hope John & the Maths do a full show later this year.

Ordered a ticket for the Roundhouse. Looking forward to seeing OMD because I've never seen them live, so it's a double bonus with John.

Talk about rip off Britain, got charged £5.50 just to post my ticket.

So excited to see this, bought my OMD ticket afew weeks ago and now it will be a brilliant night when they come to Oxford

was thinking of going but this news made my mind up looking forward to this.

OMD are about 70% miming on stage anyways.
At least The Maths do actually play real things with their fingers.

At the last OMD gig even some of the vocals and Andy's bass guitar were clearly coming off a backing track (Andy rather gave the game away with some "look, no hands" bass playing )

A consumer advice: use Roundhouse website to purchase the tickets, not expensive Ticketmaster.

Ipswich & London tickets booked, and neither from greedy Ticketmaster.

OMD miming to backing tapes? That's an outrageous accusation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXH7sx5KaVI

(watch the bit just after 1.20)

Ticket bought for the Liverpool gig.Can't wait. I've seen John many times but always good to see him again. I've only seen OMD once before in '91 during the Sugar Tax tour. By then only Andy and various session men were involved. Do it will be good to see the classic line up in action.

Oh dear! pwned, as we say!

Mind you - at the Roudhouse gig, I remember John being hilariously out of sync with the backing track during Underpass (causing much consternation betwixt Benge and the girls), which was mysteriously miraculously fixed on the live DVD! all the lolz!

OMD have never been afraid of admitting to using backing tapes!

OK everyone.

The tour's on! Margate last night.
I'm looking forward to hearing your reviews, anecdotes, pictures etc.

Hope everyone has a great time

well, I was there in the rather incongruous neo-Grecian splendour of the Winter Gardens ballroom in Margate last night.

The Maths set was swamped in vast cavernous bass booms at the start (I thought the chandeliers might collapse!) but the soundguy manage to tame it a bit by the end of the set.

This is the 3rd time I've seen The Maths live... each time they've shed musicians! ... but they are still basically playing the same set from the original Roundhouse gig! This is a bit odd, as they're on their 3rd album now, but there was only a single new song (Evidence) in the set. What about all the other new tunes? I really find "Running Man" and "Catwalk" and "Summerland" a bit "meh" compared to things like "Tides" (TIDES is BRILLIANT!!!!!! Why aren't they playing it?!?) Oh well.

Benge looks great thwacking away on the drum pads, John got as animated singing as I've ever seen him, and Hannah Peel's violin is a very nice touch. "Burning Car" and "Underpass" kicked serious ass.
One of the tunes got hilariously out of sync (John seemed to be singing 1 beat beat or ahead of the backing track... I forget which tune it actually was!) but it proved it was live


OMD's set had much clearer sound and a good set too! A good night out, although 2½ hour drive back to Brighton and 5 hours sleep before getting up for work has left me a little tired as I type this...

Here's John Foxx, Hannah and Benge 'standing in the dark' at Birmingham Symphony Hall last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DEDjF983oA

This was the last track played, but I won't spoil the setlist for others going

Talking of which...
One of the things I'm working on is a database of tracks that John Foxx has performed live.
Like, ever!
Yes really. As you can imagine its an 'interesting' challenge.

So if anyone is at an OMD support gig and makes a note, do let me know.

Foxxy looks totally triumphant at the end and seems to get a big round of applause at the end.

I for one would appreciate seeing the setlist Martin .. don't think it would be that much of a 'spoiler' going by what feline1 has said.

No One Driving from last night:-

http://youtu.be/8CWw-lLhGxc

I have the setlist but will put it up on a different thread with my review later.

Yes it was dark.

Brian

I thought it was a good set, especially for someone like me who hadn't seen JF&tM play live. (Confession: I didn't have any of the three albums till I bought them last night, though I've heard a lot of the tracks on the web.) He started off a tad noisily for the audience's taste, but from Evergreen he started to win them over. Being a support act is hard - you're perched in front of a curtain at the front of the stage with limited lighting effects, but they did a good job and I'm hoping now that I can find good quality recordings of live versions of the JF&tM tracks.

Sorry I didn't try to get to meet anyone last night - I've not been posting for a while and it only occurred to me at the last moment. :-( I'd actually appreciate a West Midlands JF get-together sometime - maybe next winter.

Anyone else going to the Roundhouse this Friday?

A very enjoyable show last night (in Birmingham). John started by complimenting the 'splendid venue' and then promising to 'destroy it' - I assume referring to the huge wave of noise that was about to emanate from the speakers! It probably was a tad loud to start with, but the sound quality was pretty crisp.

I was up in the gods and the lighting was very subdued, so I could only just make out John behind his keyboard(s).

The whole performance was slick and I think well received by a very polite and well behaved audience.

OMD sounded great and I enjoyed seeing them for the first time. Andy sure does burn a few calories during the set and came out with a few amusing comments. At one point he tried to encourage our upper balcony to get up and dance 'so long as we promise not to fall over the edge'.

Hope the rest of the tour goes as well as this show. I'm sure all who go will enjoy.

several posters on the OMD forum complained that John's sound in Birmingham was bloody terrible, driving many punters from their seats.

Yes, I noticed the comments on the OMD forum as well. I can only assume it depended where you were sitting - we were up on the second tier of balconies and there didn't seem to be any problems or people leaving.

Cheers Mike .. nice to hear that Foxxians are 'discovering' OMD at last!

The English Electric tour pictures from Ipswich and London:

http://www.mrnormall.net/omd/englishelectric/

Dadge,

Id be up for a JF get-together!

Ah...Winston the old tape machine

Some excellent pictures of both JM&TM and OMD at the Leeds gig on Ed Fielding's official flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edfielding/sets/72157633449988625/with/8726145014/

These are brilliant photographs, some of the best I've seen. Thanks for sharing them

I posted a couple of photos (not very good ones this time) and a small review of The Sage (Gateshead) gig here:

Marshtowers http://marshtowers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/omd-at-sage.html

Somehow I've managed not to look at the forum for months! Yes, let's do it - sometime in Feb would be good for me. Not sure where though.

Some more thoughts about the Brum gig:
Setlist...
Evidence
He's A Liquid
Evergreen
No-One Driving
Summerland
The Running Man
Burning Car
Catwalk
Underpass

Like I've already said, I don't think Evidence & HAL were a good choice to start a set for OMD fans. Evergreen was much more like it, and a revelation to me, since for some odd reason it's one of the JFATM tracks I've hardly ever heard. It's a great song and it was done really well. The gig was great from then on - thankfully the performance of the ridiculous Running Man nonsense was much better than the song - and Catwalk was very effective. The set was a bit unimaginative though and some more thought could've been given to what would go down well with OMD fans, rather than the pretence that there's still a Dark concept to Foxxism.

I found it hard to summon up much enthusiasm for the OMD set even though they're one of my favourite bands and I was at the Odeon the last time they played Brum. (Dear god I've just checked the 2013 setlist and see I sat through 24 songs!!) I haven't bought or listened to anything they've done since "New Head" and the only songs they played that I really care about were Messages, Enola Gay and Electricity. The new stuff washed over me in that kind of "What's the point?" way that you get with artists you've lost connection with.

Happy New Year!