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Synthetic Vision’ December 2001
Danny King
This was the third visit The
Human League had made to Ireland and the thirteen date of the fourth teen
dates on their ‘Secrets U.K Tour 2001’. The venue for tonight’s concert the
‘Olympia Theatre’ is situated ten minutes from Dublin’s city centre and was
originally opened in 1878 as a theatre, the ornate and decorative interior
seemed somewhat fitting with the elegance and romance of the image and music
of The Human League, Philip Oakley remarked early in the concert that he
wished he could play in a venue like this more often, the Olympia itself has
a capacity of 1.500 with standing room only downstairs and two of the three
seated balcony’s opened, tonight the venue certainly looked full or at least
just under it with those in attendance on the night making an excellent
atmosphere that left Susan to remarked during the show that this was the
best show that they had done during the tour itself.
The concert began with ‘Being Boiled’, the song itself being sung off stage
by Philip while the band stood in semi-darkness, this track was followed by
the first surprise of the night with ‘Circus Of Death’, seemly being played
live for the first time since 1980, perfectly sung (on stage) by the
motionless Philip, a fantastic track live, this led to the ‘Mirror Man’
single and the first sight of Susan & Joanne on stage, like Philip both wore
a number of different outfits through out the show while following this was
the first of five tracks from their latest album ‘Secrets’, ‘Shameless’, a
track that’s being looked at for the next single and came across well live,
this led to the first visit of the evening to the ‘Dare’ album with the
single ‘Love Action’ & ‘Seconds’, both sounding great and where followed by
‘The Lebanon’, not exactly every fans favourite and one that would not be
missed in my view, next was another classic single ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’
and then the often over looked and superb single ‘Heart Like A Wheel’, back
to ‘Secrets’ with another potential single ‘Love Me Madly’, for me it sounds
a lot better live than on the album itself, then ‘Human’, never one of my
favourite singles, it leads into two tracks from ‘Secrets’, ‘Never Give Your
Heart’ & ‘Snake’, like everything else from ‘Secrets’ on this tour both
tracks sound great, these are followed by another over looked single
‘Fascination’ then the ‘Electric Dreams’ single, within reason a surprise
choice but it comes across well live and also goes down well with the
audience, this leads to the superb ‘Tell Me When’ and to finish the concert
itself ‘Don’t You Want Me’, fantastic as ever and with the addition of the
audience singing along.
The first of the two encores began with an ‘unplugged’ version of ‘One Man
In My Heart’, an acoustic guitar played by Nick and the main riff played on
a synth by Neil Sutton with Susan providing the vocals, different to say the
least but personally I would have preferred the original version than this
‘unplugged’ version, Susan’s vocals didn’t sound strong enough to carry off
the track itself in this format, the encore also included another classic
track from ‘Dare’, ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’, a fantastic version
of a track that still sounds as strong twenty years on.
The second encore and finish to the concert itself was the recent single
‘All I Ever Wanted’, another of the newer tracks that sounded great live and
what better way to finish the concert itself.
I was not so sure about the addition of ‘The Lebanon’ & ‘Electric Dreams’ to
the set list, unfortunately both tracks gave the guitarist Nick a chance to
display some guitar work, not something I’d like to see at a Human League
concert nor any Synth Pop concert, I thought both tracks could have been
replaced with tracks like ‘Life On Your Own’ & ‘These Are The Days’, nor was
I that sure about the ‘unplugged’ version of ‘One Man In My Heart’, a brave
decision that didn’t exactly work but another track that gave the audience
the chance to sing along with Susan, apart from this the track selection was
excellent, a good cross section of tracks from down the years, both singles
and album tracks, great to hear tracks like ‘Circus Of Death’,
‘Fascination’, ‘Heart Like A Wheel’, ‘Tell Me When’ & ‘All I Ever Wanted’
played live.
This was an excellent concert from one of if not the best Electronic bands
on the present live scene, a very impressive and enjoyable performance set
against a simple and striking stage set with a basic and clever design and
effective use of single coloured lights, all perfectly combining with the
music of offer, a heavily Kraftwerk influenced style of Synth Pop, an
Electronic band that are not to be missed live, one of the best Synth Pop
concerts you will ever have the pleasure of attending!!.
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