Much more than just nostalgia at the synthfest of iconic Brits.
All photo: Hogne Bø Pettersen
– I would go to the bar, Andy McCluskey said self-deprecatingly to the audience after OMD (I don’t bother to write the whole hopeless name, as they spell Maneouv..Man…yeah, you know) had played several songs from last year’s album Bauhaus Staircase in a row. But no one at Rockefeller would come up with something like that, since we’re talking here about a room full of die-hard OMD fans, all of whom had clearly done as I did: Concluded that last year’s release is their best record since Dazzle Ships which came in 1983.
In the years after that, a number of more polished pop albums came out, and when McCluskey took over OMD all by himself through the 90s, things got even better. Fortunately, they skipped this period at the Rockefeller this Monday night, with the exception of playing the two best songs that came from this period: Sailing on the Seven Seas and Pandora’s Box. Both were in heavy rotation on MTV Europe in the early 90s, and they give me the same nostalgic feelings as their 80s material. But there were also a bit too many songs from Junk Culture and the time when they broke through in the US and got their music into films like Pretty in Pink (Molly Ringwald was shown on the big LED screen behind them). This is not a period I am very happy about, especially not songs like Locomotion. It also became a bit monotonous when these songs came very close to each other. But there was a lot of other gold here that pulled it up and made this a good concert.
This was the band’s very first concert during the tour, and they came out to the tunes of two new songs from their latest album (Evolution and Anthropocene). McCluskey of course came out dancing with his signature moves. He has a distinctive dance style, that’s for sure, but there’s something classy about it too.
The band is a quartet now, although Paul Humphreys and McCluskey are the songwriters and main men. In addition, they brought Martin Cooper on keyboards and saxophone. He joined OMD in 1980 and has been in and out of the band a bit. The fourth man is Stuart Kershaw on drums, who has been on and off since 1991. He also wrote the previously mentioned 90s songs together with McCluskey, and also helped write for the girl band Atomic Kitten, also together with McCluskey.
The stage show is a large LED screen that most bands tour with now, and you can make a lot of nice things out of one. And OMD set it in motion. There were animations, entertainment between scene changes and clips from films and music videos. McCluskey and Humphreys alternated on lead vocals. Humphreys was particularly good on Forever Live and Die, which is the best that came out of OMD after the heyday of the early 80s. If you’re going to make commercial pop first, then it has to be done as well as it.
OMD has never hidden that Kraftwerk is their biggest source of inspiration, and at one point in the concert they even lined up side by side, behind workstations, just like Kraftwerk, and performed several songs from their latest album. And it was really beautiful.
McCluskey communicated well with the audience and it became quite enjoyable as time went on. The classic 80s songs were probably the best, and to my delight I got both Joan of Arc songs, probably the best they’ve done. And with Enola Gay, they created a party atmosphere. It’s really absurd that such a happy song has such a dark theme, which was emphasized by the LED screen behind them filled with nuclear clouds and destruction. Presumably social satire as much as anything else.
After a short break, they came out for an encore. It’s quite brave to do that with Look at You Now, which is a brand new and quiet song, but it worked. And when Electricity faded out to stomping and chanting from the audience on “Electricityyyyyy” it dawned on me that almost two hours had just flown by.
– We will be back, said both McCluskey and Humphreys. All right, Orhcestral Maneuv..Manouev… all right, OMD!