Like, ohmygod! The 2025 Totally Tubular Festival was totally not as grody as I thought it might be! (OK, enough of that -- I'm already exhausted.) Despite my well-earned reputation as an '80s fanatic, these kinds of things are (totally) not my style: A) I hate festivals/drawn-out concerts; B) I'm very selective about the music I listen to -- especially to see performed live; and C) These things invariably pick the wrong nostalgia acts (think Animotion, Go West or a Stuart Adamson-less Big Country).
But as it would happen, not one but two of my favorite artists -- Bow Wow Wow and the Motels -- were included in this lineup. And then they started to give tickets away -- $22(!) -- with the venue all but walking distance from my apartment, at which point I decided: Why not?
Security was a nightmare, so we ended up arriving as Tommy Tutone was performing a (not surprisingly extended) version of "867-5309/Jenny." Given the fact that the next couple acts did just three songs each, the most we missed was two, which was a bit of a shame given that front man Tommy Heath was in fine form at 78. Shockingly, I learned that the band had actually scored another Top 40 pre-"Jenny," in 1980's "Angel Say No," which has to be the answer to the hardest question in the Trivial Pursuit Totally '80s edition. (You're welcome.)
Next up was Bow Wow Wow, aka Annabella Lwin. With guitarist Matthew Ashman six feet under since 1995 and her relationships with drummer David Barbarossa and bassist Leigh Gorman also long dead, Annabella has had to fight to keep performing as Bow Wow Wow since Gorman likes to perform under the moniker with singer Chloe Demetria, which sounds about as sad as the Culture Club sans Boy George and Divinyls sans Chrissy Amphlett attempts of recent memory. Annabella looked and sounded great as she came out to the band's second single, "W.O.R.K. (N.O. Nah, No No My Daddy Don't)," the 1981 protest song satirizing the Thatcherite push for work in austerity-era Britain. From this deep cut they pivoted to "Do You Want to Hold Me?" and "I Want Candy," the group's two highest-charting singles in the U.S. Always a pleasure to see that one.
Then came Martha Davis and the Motels, which included longtime keyboardist/saxophonist Marty Jouard, the brother of lead guitarist Jeff Jouard, who was booted from the band back in the day in favor of Martha's then-boyfriend Tim McGovern. (Those were some awkward holidays!) Martha wasted no time in singing "Only the Lonely," followed by a haunting version of "So L.A." (great choice!), "Suddenly Last Summer" and "Strange Days." Martha is the main reason I decided to go -- interviewing her in 2008 remains a blogging highlight -- because she's 74 and recently had a second bout of breast cancer, which first struck her at the height of the Motels' popularity in the early '80s. I'd love to see her perform a full set, but at this point any Martha is better than no Martha. Unlike so many of my legacy artists, Martha is still making music that stands up to her heyday output, and I'm hearing 2026 will see the birth of even more. Here's hoping she's in the mood to travel again to celebrate that. (Listen to the albums "This," "Beautiful Life" or "The Last Few Beautiful Days" if you don't believe me.)
The Motels were followed by Thomas Dolby, who hilariously announced that he was the only artist on the bill who had "never broken up and gotten back together" and still had all its original members. I've always been a fan, but even I was surprised by how terrific his set was, bolstered by his doing "Europa and the Pirate Twins" and "One of Our Submarines," two of the best songs of the 1980s. He also did "Hyperactive" and, of course, "She Blinded Me With Science," the projected video of which featured a surprise cameo by Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the delight of the crowd.
This is where I got a little confused. Because they were billed toward the top, I somehow had it in my head that Men at Work was next. If this makes me sound like an idiot, please note that neither the Aussies nor Men Without Hats were ever bands I ever got particularly excited about -- but I definitely know the former was way bigger than the latter, so at least I knew something was off. The Canadian synthpop-sters got off to a bad start, with singer Ivan Doroschuk bouncing around like a Super Ball to what turned out to be "The Safety Dance," only the microphone malfunctioned, so it took a good minute or so before it was fixed. Next, they did songs called "Moonbeam," "Where Do the Boys Go?" and "Antarctica" before performing their other hit, the delightful "Pop Goes the Word." From there they announced that they were doing what every '80s fan dreads hearing -- "a new song" -- before launching into the on-the-nose "I Love the '80s," which by the end had the crowd singing along. (OK, it was kinda cute.) To the producers' credit, they then allowed the band to take "Safety Dance" from the top -- which took me back to when I saw A Flock of Seagulls in 1983 and they did "I Ran" twice ... without sound problems! -- announcing that this was for "anyone who'd arrived late"! Worth noting that one of the band members wasn't a man and one of them was in fact wearing a hat, yet they charmed me in an unexpected way.
*I would argue that the Motels are the second biggest band on the bill, but I've read that Martha prefers to go on early -- plus Men Without Hats are more lively, so perhaps it makes sense for them to go on later.
So while I'm still not sure how Men Without Hats ranks "second" among the artists on the bill, the fact that they're not the at-work men explained how A Flock of Seagulls soared to the top of the bill. Fondly remembered as the quintessential one-hit wonder of the new wave era, the group did in fact have a few chart hits, so it was great hearing "Space Age Love Song" (my personal favorite), "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph)" and "The More You Live, the More You Love" -- as well as "Say You Love Me" and "Some Dreams" -- before closing the night out with ruckus version of "I Ran." Although grumpy frontman Mike Score is the only original member -- even his drummer brother has long flown the coup -- touring bassist Pando(TM), who reminded me of Toni Basil if Toni Basil had an eating disorder, knows how to keep the crowd engaged.
All in all, a fun night in a roomful of like-minded fans, some of whom were more dedicated to the cause than others.
If you hurry, you can see clips from most of the artists on my Instagram stories HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment