Pasadena Flyby

While I was trying to get myself some sleep during the wee hours of Sunday morning after my ‘late night’ staying up to watch Eurovision and hoping to see the Northern Lights whose fantastical fluorescent dance I had missed the previous night due to my being a confirmed old fart (I was in bed by 10pm) – that band fae Glasgow were performing a short, sharp set to a bunch of fans in California.

Yes, I’m in my 50s now – a ‘late night’ seemingly involves me being up after midnight – I know! I can’t bloody believe it, either. A night owl literally from the time I was born I have now fully changed into being a morning person. Not super early, mind. I am still a bear in that I REALLY love my sleep, but I’m always up before 8am at the very latest. Most days I’m usually up around 7.15am. Sometimes earlier if my bladder has allowed me to sleep well and relatively undisturbed all through the night (a true rarity these days). But I digress. 

As I came round during my fitful sleep trying to calculate the time in Pasadena and wondering if at this point they’d be on stage performing right now, my mind wandered to pondering what songs they’d be performing. Assuming if they were going to pander to the promoters and shake their proverbial assets while trying to entice the hoards of promoters and organisers there, they’d want to play to their ‘strengths’ in terms of what they’re best known for over the other side of the Atlantic. Namely, the Once Upon A Time album. I had assumed while pondering said setlist in my semi-conscious dwam that it would be, no doubt, heavy with songs from their 1985 fairytale titled octet offering. A view of the setlist later in the morning was of little surprise to me. 

Let’s give it a scrutinous eye. There were nine songs performed in their allotted 55 minutes, concentrated on their strongest mid-eighties height Stateside, with four tracks from OUAT performed, plus the old stand-alone ‘la-la-la’ sing-along song, with two from New Gold Dream, and Sparkles’ Waterfront as the set opener. I must admit to being one of those ‘Whaaaa? A COVER?!’ naysayers when seeing The Walls Came Down as part of this nine song set. Yes, I get the significance of the song for Jim – another Call song, Michael Been, still a relevant reflection of the current times, ya da ya da – but it doesn’t override the fact that the band has another 200+ songs of their own that they could have shone a light on. Did someone not think ‘we’re missing an opportunity here with ONE SONG to say, “Hey, we’re still producing music. We’ve still got the goods guys, come see us when we tour next year.” LISTEN TO THIS!’ and thrown in a blinder like Planet Zero or Solstice Kiss or Vision Thing. One song that was current, just as relevant, and theirs! They could have saved The Walls Came Down for next year’s tour. 

Again, I highlight Jim’s contradictory tendencies – ‘We don’t look back. We’re always moving forward. The wheels on the bus move on, on ,on – not back, back, back.’ And all that ‘we’re still relevant and not punch-drunk boxers’ guff. Well, it’s all pissing in the wind if you don’t back it up with something on the setlist that compounds that sentiment rather than a fucking goddamn cover. I like covers, Jim, you know I do – but there’s a time and place. Come on! What the fuck?! I understood the rest of the setlist. It made perfect sense. I knew you’d rely on OUAT for the majority of the set because we know the Americas dropped Simple Minds like a stone for Street Fighting Years. Another slight surprise was the choice of performing Someone Somewhere In Summertime instead of Glittering Prize. I’m pretty sure GP fared better Stateside than SSIS did (it even fared better in the UK charts).

I know it must be hard to sell your wares with just a nine-song setlist and the one gripe I have is just that choice of covering The Call over choosing one of their own recent songs. It seems a daft move given all the rhetoric Jim offers up about their relevance as a current touring band. The end result is a confirmed tour of at least North America next year. Will it encompass Central and South America too? Who knows? At least the Global Tour can now truly start to be seen as ‘global’. Still, there is Asia and southern Africa to consider also. Will they get a look in?

A successful wee hop and many miles travelled (carbon footprint, anyone?) for one short participation on what was otherwise one of those “80s nostalgia- fest” things that Jim has always seemed VERY reluctant to be part of. Considering he had confirmed the return to the U.S. next year to the crowd of fans watching in Pasadena – was it all hinging on it as he seemed to suggest it was in a post last week? Or was that just how the band and management were justifying the travel and air miles to themselves for going over there for one lone gig? It sounds as if it was all ‘in the bag’ before they even took to the stage in CA on Saturday night. 

There’s another break in the schedule now until the summer festival season in Europe begins on 15 June in the west of France at Le Mans and continues on through the UK, and back across through Europe hitting France, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula before ending in Colmar in eastern France on 4 August. Exactly where they go from there remains to be seen. It’s a full calendar during the summer anyway, with 28 dates on the cards.