Citrus Club, Edinburgh, Friday February 3rd 2012
2 stars
2 stars
When eighties tribute band support act Party Fears Three dedicate their
bombastically unsubtle cover of David Bowie's Ashes To Ashes to Steve
Strange, who appeared in the song's video as part of the
Bowie-influenced New Romantic scene of flamboyantly apparelled clothes
horses and dressing-up box dandies, it was almost an accidental epitaph
for what followed. Because when the somewhat fragile-looking original
Blitz-kid and face of New Romo supergroup Visage finally takes the
stage with a perma-smiling bottle-blonde co-vocalist beside him for his
first ever Scottish show, he nearly comes a cropper after a dodgy
microphone serves him the double indignity of cutting out on the
opening number before giving him an electric shock as he tries to fix
it.
Mind you, starting off what back in the actual 1980s was called a club
PA – a somewhat lonely looking artist running through a couple of hits
to a backing track played from the DJ booth - with a brand new song
from his forthcoming Detroit Starrzz album was never going to be a
winner either. Especially when it's preceded by Strange asking an
audience made up of what appears to be several office parties who got
lost en route to George Street if they'd seen the previous day's
edition of Loose Women.
Once an already fragile-looking Strange, all dressed up in big hat and
checked jacket like a cut-price Boy George turned surrealist spiv, has
recovered, he and Blondie make a fair fist of Mind of A Toy, even if
Strange's voice, bereft of studio gloss, is seriously in need of some
autotune. And indeed some more basic technical help besides, as the
abrupt end to an otherwise game Night Train attests to when the backing
track starts stuttering like a Paul H-H-H-Hardcastle remix. Strange
forgets his set list, declares how he'll never fly Easyjet again, hams
it up like billy-o on the “definitely not about me” Diary of A Madman,
dating from his last attempted comeback, then jumps aboard the Olympics
gravy train with Aiming For Gold, which he talks up as some kind of
anthem for England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. “We're all Celts,” he
says, pronouncing it 'Selts'.
After what looks like a premature if somewhat wise departure, Strange's
thoroughly showbiz female foil attempts to whip up some belated
enthusiasm for an encore of Visage's bone fide hit, Fade To Grey. A
football style chant brings him back, but it's all a tad
anti-climactic. Yet, despite such an under-whelming display, one can't
blame Strange for attempting to reclaim the spotlight in light of the
umpteen resurrections by his peers, and one shouldn't write him off too
soon. Look what happened to a similarly unstable Adam Ant. To cut a
long story short, if Strange got himself a band, sorted out his patter
and made an effort with a half-decent stage show, he may yet prove that
romance, new or otherwise, is not dead yet.
The List, February 2012
ends
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