Made in Sheffield
I remember seeing The Human League live in some smallish town in Belgium (Mechelen), right before they got erm, rather famous. They couldn’t afford decent equipment, clean clothes or fancy make-up, but I thought they were just wonderful. Cocky, disdained, out-of-tune and fiercely arrogant, but bloody good, they were… That really captivated me, that gig.
Comments
Comment from Dan
Time: December 20, 2007, 9:30 pm
I have this DVD (”Made in Sheffield”), I know Eve Woods who made it (no surprise there), and funnily enough the Youtube preview shot is of Stephen Singleton, who occasionally plays with my friend Mark, whose band I briefly played in last year.
Yeah, Sheffield is a small but fertile world. Eve has another DVD out “The World of Pink Grease”, featuring “Nick’s World of Synthesizers”, about the guy who plastered my office wall! Apparently it’s doing quite well at various film festivals around the world right now.
For many years Phil Oakey was something of a lounge lizard around Sheffield, always hanging out in the new trendy places and trading on his reputation in exchange for a few drinks. I think he has his act together a bit more now though.
There’s quite an interesting new wave of synth-noise-merchants coming out of Sheffield right now: probably not really your kind of thing, but I find them really fascinating and very enjoyable live, they tend to mix up synth & guitar in a very roughshod punky sort of way.
Comment from Lex
Time: December 14, 2007, 8:55 pm
Ha, so nice you bring a topic about this much loved combo…
In fact I was there too, monsignori, so can’t resist to respond.
Although it was indeed a very nice concert, I just had not the same over-over-overwhelming feeling as a few years before that, when the original 4-some sans female singers figured as the support act for Iggy Pop in Brussels.
The first album had just been released and they were really dangerous at the time, an electronic sex pistols so to say.
When the females where recruited and Marsch and Ware went their ways the edge was gone and the League went pop, although indeed a class act.
Saw them again a few years ago in Lokeren, some nice moments but not spectacular overall. Chic was much better there ;-).
Best Regards,
Lex