Sparks concerts 5, 6, 7 & 8

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PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK
Concert Reviews : Sparks concerts 5/6/7/8 out of 21, Islington Academy, 21+23+24+25/05/08
I continued my attendance of this wild sequence of Sparks album gigs. With their fifth album 'Indiscreet', they flirted with orchestrations, and in the concert the band moved forward to make way for occasional string and brass sections. I remembered some quote from the Mael brothers explaining how producer Tony Visconti's first act on their arrival in studio was to sit them down in reverential silence to listen to him play the bass line of 'The Man Who Sold The World' by David Bowie. Apparently he played on the original, and this moment had set the tone for the session. The two singles from that album 'Get In The Swing' and 'Looks Looks Looks' were quite different from the previous singles, with an almost party feel.

The album after 'Indiscreet' was 'Big Beat'. I remembered this album because despite being a big Sparks fan at the time I heard nothing about it until I saw it, and bought it, at a bargain basement price in a central London record shop. It was in a black and white sleeve, unlike the previous gatefold effort. It made one suspect that Island Records, their label, just weren't interested in promoting it, and indeed Russell Mael referred to it on stage as one of their albums that weren't very well known in England. It was their last album for Island, and reminded me that John Foxx's Ultravox were also on Island, and they similarly didn't seem to get the promotional attention they deserved. I remembered that the final track 'I Like Girls' had been a popular live number years before when they had been performing their first album ('Kimono My House') in the mid-seventies, so this added to a 'contractual obligation' feeling.

One thing that intrigued me was how they would deliver their song 'White Women' and how it would be received. The chorus of this song goes 'as long as they're white from head to toe, as long as they're white I'll have a go'. Whilst at the time I just let this madness of grown ups wash over me, I couldn't see how they could perform it without a raised eyebrow or two. As it happened it was the second of 2 songs for which Ron Mael stepped up to the mike to deliver a 'health warning' that their songs were not meant to be taken literally. I'd forgotten about another track on the same album called 'Throw Her Away And Get A New One' which compares girls with cars that have to be exchanged for newer models. Like smoking in Thunderbirds or Carry On humour, these anachronistic, if sadly still pervasive, ideas were treated as if locked in history. Certainly no one that had deliberately come to the concert was about to invade the stage and picket the show. I did wonder if they were part of a provocative farewell present for Island Records.

The concert went down a storm with the smaller hardcore audience, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the songs live. I'd been remembering Kevin Worthington, a former work colleague, who I knew was a big fan from talking about it when we were both working in Italy. I was absolutely delighted to bump into him leaving the concert. He'd come over from Ireland, where he now lives and works, especially for it, because it was this album, along with the earlier 'Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing', that were his favourites.

Saturday marked another twist in the Sparks story with their seventh album 'Introducing Sparks'. This featured more vocal harmonies and some songs such as 'Over This Summer' that could be taken in a lighter tuneful way than their usual sting-in-the-tail lyrical efforts. The sleeve of the album features a very stylised image of Russell Mael backed with an equally stylised image of Ron Mael and the projections used front and back images. Again this concert went down very well with the smaller hard core Sparks fan audience.

Sunday was yet another change as they performed the 'No. 1 in Heaven' album. This was their first seriously synthi album with Girgio Moroder doing the production. The audience had definitely changed, and I saw audience members dancing in a Communards/Bronski Beat kind of way. As at most of the concerts I stood behind someone tall, as I am 6 foot 2, and didn't want to block anyone's view anymore than it was already blocked.

Ron Mael had suddenly had his hair styled in the super curly off-to-one-side style, that Russell Mael described as being a 'homage' to another performer of the time. I assumed Phil Oakey of Human League. They had also changed their attire with Ron in a shirt without tie and Russell in trousers with braces but no jacket. Aside from occasional backing vocals, they were only accompanied by Steven Nistor, their drummer from the previous nights. He did a magnificent job of performing the complex synthi drum parts and keeping in time with all the sequencers.

Russell explained that they had not been able to move the synths and equipment required to make the sounds at the time, so this was literally the first time they'd been able to perform the entire album live. For the first time he mentioned something of a 'story behind the album' explaining that it was a change to work with Giorgio Moroder (for them and him) but that it was not a betrayal of their rock roots (or blasphemous) as people had written at the time. Ron was obviously delighted with the evening and for the first time was sporting an extremely wide grin on his face.

I am extremely sorry that due to prior commitments I am going to be missing out on most of the next 2 weeks of concerts. It certainly has been a remarkable and enjoyable set of events.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]