Martin Fry peered out over the crowd and jokingly summed up the scene.
“Look at you,” the ABC front man remarked in his usual charming and debonair fashion. “All too young to remember the ’80s.”
Aww, that was certainly sweet of the 66-year-old crooner to say. But, of course, it was hardly accurate. The Masonic in San Francisco was filled to near capacity on Thursday night (Feb. 6) with fans who don’t just remember the ’80s — they still actively cherish that decade, and its music, to this very day.
And those folks were more than ready to enjoy one of the most intriguing ’80s music doubleheaders of the year — a co-headlining tour with new wave icons ABC and Howard Jones that was kicking off a month-long North American run at the Masonic.
The former was absolutely brilliant on this Night 1 of the tour, showcasing all the reasons why ABC should be held up as one of the greatest new-wave pop acts of the ’80s — right up there with the likes of Duran Duran and Eurythmics. Jones was also enjoyable, although on a strictly pedestrian level, as he had the misfortune of having to follow ABC’s sparkling set with his own modestly entertaining offering.
Both of the sets were highly nostalgic, of course. Yet, Jones’ brand of bouncy, lightweight synth-pop — with the occasional vaguely Caribbean element added into the mix — seems very much stuck in the ’80s. On the other hand, the ABC songs — due to their timeless nature and reliance on R&B and classic pop styles — absolutely transcend the decade in all the right ways.
Dressed to the nines in his trademark tux — this time with a snazzy, glossy gold jacket and no bowtie — Fry beckoned the crowd to “Come aboard our time machine” as ABC spent more than a third of its 13-song setlist with its landmark debut album, 1982’s staggeringly brilliant “The Lexicon of Love.”
Backed by a topnotch five-piece band, Fry was in peak vocal form — closely resembling what you hear on those ’80s records — as he opened the show with “When Smokey Sings,” a Motown-inspired dance-pop number from 1987’s “Alphabet City” that translated to ABC’s highest-charting single in America. (The tune reached No. 5, four spots higher than “Be Near Me” climbed two years earlier.)
Fry has always been one of the genre’s finest pure crooners, blessed with a voice that falls somewhere between Bobby Darin (think “Mack the Knife”) and Bryan Ferry (more along the lines of Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug” than his solo standards work). And Fry — the only original member still in the band — certainly put that still (mostly) pristine voice to tremendous use as he reawakened such giants as “Poison Arrow,” “That Was Then but This Is Now” and “Tears Are Not Enough.”
The performance continued to get better, and build momentum with the crowd, as the set continued, peaking right as it approached the finish line with an amazing triple-shot of the group’s three best songs — “All of My Heart,” “Be Near Me” and “The Look of Love.”
Jones wouldn’t come close to matching any of that during his own set, which certainly included some nice enough songs but also sorely lacked in intensity and enthusiasm (especially from the crowd) at times.
The crowd was certainly into the performance at the start, as Jones opened the show with three four consecutive numbers from the 1984 debut “Human’s Lib” — “Pearl in the Shell,” “Like to Get to Know You Well” and “New Song.”
Playing a variety of synth equipment, Jones was backed by a four-piece band that included bassist Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo — a group that is remembered for having the best haircuts in all of the new wave genre as well as for the omnipresent ’80s hit “Too Shy.” Given that Kajagoogoo never managed to tour America — and, yet, somehow America still managed to survive — it turned out to be a great idea for Jones, Beggs and company to fit “Too Shy” into the this setlist.
Jones was also in suitably fine vocal form as he continued through the likes of “Life in One Day” and “No One Is to Blame,” yet the crowd — perhaps having spent most of its energy boogeying along to the ABC set — seemed to lose interest in the latter portions of the show. Also, Jones’ lightweight musical mix — which stirs thoughts of what Phil Collins might have sounded like if he’d never been part of Genesis — hasn’t aged very well, except perhaps in some of the crowd member’s own nostalgic hearts.
The 69-year-old new wave icon would recover from that late-set lull nicely enough, however, as he brought the show to a close with the smashes “What Is Love?” and “Things Can Only Get Better.”
In terms of this tour, things might only get better if organizers decided to flip who opens and who closes — because Howard Jones showed on Night 1 of this trek that he has no business trying to follow ABC on the stage.
ABC setlist
1. “When Smokey Sings”2. “Show Me”3. “(How to Be a) Millionaire”4. “Viva Love”5. “Poison Arrow”6. “King Without a Crown”7. “That Was Then but This Is Now”8. “Vanity Kills”9. “The Night You Murdered Love”10. “Tears Are Not Enough”11. “All of My Heart”12. “Be Near Me”Encore:13. “The Look of Love”
Howard Jones setlist
1. “Pearl in the Shell”2. “Like to Get to Know You Well”3. “New Song”4. “Eagle Will Fly Again”5. “Too Shy” (Kajagoogoo cover)6. “Life in One Day”7. “No One Is to Blame”8. “Hide & Seek”9. “The One to Love You”10. “You Know I Love You, Don’t You?”11. “Everlasting Love”12. “What Is Love?”13. “Things Can Only Get Better”