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Tears
For Fears
w/
Dirty Vegas
Northern
Lights Theater
November 7, 2004
This was my first time actually seeing a ‘show’ in the Northern
Lights Theater located inside the Potowatomi Casino. I had previously
been to the WAMI awards, which has been held there over the years, but
what a killer venue. It’s Vegas style with tables and booths, so not
much of a stand up and dance venue…..which is fine by me. We had great
seats so I figured it would be pretty hard to screw this show
up…….and they didn’t.
Dirty
Vegas, also from the
UK
opened. They did a pretty good job considering the thickness of the
anticipation for TFF. So for about 25 minutes we were ‘graced’ with
a sorta techno-pop meets Crowded House kinda vibe. It was ‘ok’. It
didn’t suck, but it was kinda like, alright already, thank you
goodnite….please?
Then
the recently reunited Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith took the stage along
with three other great musicians to make up the 5-piece 2004 version of
Tears For Fears. From the first note every aspect of this show was
‘on’. The guys looked, sang, and played great. What was really cool
is that they had Nick d'Virgilio touring with them. He’s also the
drummer for the LA based prog band Spock’s Beard, which do, in fact,
rule. They played almost the entire new cd ‘Everybody Loves A Happy
Ending’ along with the ‘hits’ like ‘Sowing The Seeds Of Love’
‘Head Over Heels’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ ‘Break
It Down Again’ along with vintage stuff like ‘Mad World’ &
‘Pale Shelter’. The encore of course was ‘Shout’.
Now for
all the ‘techies’ & musicians…..
The
stuff was reproduced near perfectly. The sampling & sequencing was
evident, and in REALLY good taste. And there’s nothing better than
being at a show where it’s obvious that the FOH sound engineer REALLY
has their shit together. They brought in their own consoles & racks.
According to a source from the venue they even had their own PA on tour
with them, but were not using it that night. Supplemented intelligent
lighting along with a theater-style stage set in the same theme as the
artwork on the new cd, and a huge circular video screen behind the band,
kind of Pink Floydish circa 1987.
All in
all, VERY cool. Extremely pro, class act. It’s shows like that, that
make you forget about what you paid for the ticket. But I guess it’s
kind of what I expected, just listen to ANY of their cd’s……..
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