And so, the first gig of the ‘Global’ tour is under their belts. The atmosphere looked good. The weather, despite the image shared by Jim that Del Boy had taken from the stage may have shown overcast condition and a bit of moisture was hardly conducive to the absolute dumping that I experienced at Blenheim Palace in June 2022.
I’ve looked at a few photos and seen a bit of footage so far. One group of photos showed a strangeness in the group gathering at the beginning of the gig. Jim keeping up this notion of the ‘haka’ style band gathering at the beginning of the concert. Of course that was going to happen in the home of the haka. Surprised he didn’t insist on them going all-out and having Maori on stage with them? Maybe he’ll save that one for Waitangi Day – but they’ll be crossing the Tasman by then as the first gig in Oz is just two days later. Maybe for the final NZ gig in Queenstown, then?
I digress. The group photos…Erik was at his keys while everyone else was gathered at the front of the stage. Welcome, Erik! (Know your place!) – *Ah, sadly some context was needed for those photos! They were taken while Sarah was performing Amazing Grace, hence Erik was at the keyboards and not with the rest of the band at the front of the stage. Apologies on my presumptions.
I saw a recording of Solstice Kiss and …. I’m going to be as objective as I can be here. In spite of myself, and despite an initial cringe of my dream coming to fruition in that Jim was breathless and off key when the song started, overall it sounded pretty good. He couldn’t help himself though, and pulled off his ‘signature move’ during the end of the first verse and into the chorus. Honestly…just because he CAN do it, it doesn’t mean he has to do it. And, if he does insist on doing it – maybe not when one really should be evoking something that exudes a greater depth of meaning than appearing like an upturned tortoise struggling to flip itself back over? Just a thought. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, Jim. By all means, knock yourself…but please pick a better moment. I mean, you wouldn’t do it during Belfast Child, would you? So can we give Solstice Kiss the same courtesy, please? Thank you.
The only footage on YT so far (at the time of this posting) is Don’t You (Forget About Me) – which goes for 9 minutes! In a set that was 16 songs long – listed below:
Waterfront
Love Song
Vision Thing
Solstice Kiss
Book Of Brilliant Things
Glittering Prize
Promised You A Miracle
King Is White And In The Crowd
Belfast Child
Someone Somewhere In Summertime
See The Lights
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Amazing Grace*
Let It All Come Down
Alive And Kicking
Sanctify Yourself
Casting my eye over said setlist, it’s one that has nothing in it that dates past 1991, other than the two tracks from Direction Of The Heart – Vision Thing and Solstice Kiss. I find this setlist very telling.
One bonus I take away from a little montage video of the gig that I saw, was a point that almost had me leaping for joy – seeing Jim sing ‘belief is a BEAUTY thing’ on Promised You A Miracle. Wow! That hasn’t happened in the whole time I’ve been seeing them! Looking back over my posts – my gig review of Paris in 2022 talked about an almost FAULTLESS performance of PYAM only sullied by Jim singing ‘belief is the ONLY thing’ and me getting disappointed about it. Perhaps come Good Friday, I will enjoy belief being a beauty thing with my own ears and eyes?! Let’s hope it lasts.
I have to say his caveat at the start of Solstice Kiss of ‘we may be a bit rusty’ had me retorting – ‘Really? Should you be after TWO WEEKS of rehearsals down there?’ (Let alone how much rehearsal time they had before travelling down there pre/post Christmas.) ‘You should be anything but “rusty”, Jim.’ Also, I see that Solstice Kiss was the fourth song in the set, so, he’d been singing for about 15 minutes by then…running about, etc – I’ll give him some licence for being breathless and off key when he started SK. But the ‘upturned tortoise’ thing SHOULD NOT take place during that song – and also (I think) exacerbated his breathlessness and being off key.
We’ll need to wait a couple more weeks before we see what happens with the setlist when they start indoor arena shows in Australia. I have to say that two shows at the Opera House in one day would have been a really lovely thing to have experienced. But life had other plans for me – hey ho.
Given the bits I have seen so far today, I feel tentatively optimistic that I will enjoy my only Simple Minds gig of 2024 when it arrives on 29 March.
PS: I continue to be disheartened and disassociate with the SMOG group. Today, I saw someone post their disappointment with the setlist at Taupo and they were subsequently set upon by the pack of wolves that is the SM sycophancy. Yes, granted, they worded themselves a bit badly – but they are allowed to express their feelings, are they not? Someone accused them of not being a true fan. Really? Whereas another person, and I’m not sure whether it was actually attached to the post I have just mentioned as some time later it was removed from the group postings (one has to wonder why the admins decide to incite this kind of stuff by posting these things in the first place – they should know by now that no one is allowed to differ in opinion from the heard mentality of SM fandom whose idea is that the band can ‘do no wrong’ and if anyone dears think otherwise, their fandom is immediately thrown into question) – said that ‘true fans’ love ALL Simple Minds music. Erm…no! That’s a sycophant, my dear! A true fan has more discerning taste than to love EVERYTHING. As a music fan, Jim himself has expressed that the artists he most loves and admires are not subject to this ‘universal’ appraisal where they can do no wrong, ever! I’ve spoken to him about Bowie and he’s said to me he doesn’t love EVERYTHING Bowie has ever produced. That’s HEALTHY fandom – and if it’s good enough for Jim to feel that way about the music he loves, then it’s good enough for Simple Minds to be subjected to the same appreciations within their own fanbase. I hope that Jim, as a performer and artist, can discern ‘real’ fans from sycophants. I really hope he can, because I worry he can be quite blinkered.
That was a long postscript! Anyway, adios for now.