I have seen them a couple of times before. The first time they were a bit maudlin and depressing and the second time very upbeat and cheerful, so it was a toss-up to which they would be this time.
Here's a photo - if you squint and pretend it was taken with a good camera instead of a mobile phone that I dropped in a cup of coffee last week, you will make out, from right to left...
- Dave Hemingway, who looks increasingly like the miserable one out of the Pet Shop Boys (debate about which one that is), especially when wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap
- Paul Heaton, the main one, and...
- in the far blurry distance, the woman, who changes every couple of years or so...
The new one is called Alison Wheeler and she fits in very well, because she can "do" the voices of the previous two.
So much so, that when she does this bit...
...she gets a mid-song round of applause for sounding like the freckly redhead woman who sang it originally (name her if you can), a bit like she would if she were doing Stars in their Eyes.
And if anything, they were more upbeat and more cheerful, despite the fact that the some of the lyrics get more poignant and more cutting. Woman in the Wall, for example, turned into a big fiesta number with horns and tambourines and all that. Paul Heaton even smiled a number of times and had some witty banter with the audience about their banners.
But someone will have to explain the big balloons, because he didn't.
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wow the sound quality on that sample is amazing...I almost felt like I was there...we would have loved to see them again too!
ReplyDeleteHow do you get a big picture from a small mobile photo?
Hello Tina! I feel that I must point out to future readers that the sound sample is not recorded from the concert, but is from the CD and is sung, in fact, by the original and aforementioned freckly red-headed woman who the new woman can imitate. Does that clear it up? I hope so. And the photo is just the photo my mobile phone takes. They are that size already. Perhaps mobile phone technology has moved on in the UK since you have been away... ;-)
ReplyDeleteBriana Corigan
ReplyDeleteLeft the band because she was unhappy with some of Paul Heaton's lyrics, or more honestly because she wanted a succesful solo career. Which was about as succesful as the original red haired freckly sugababe who left after the first album.
Bloody red heads!!!