TEARS FOR FEARS / ALISON MOYET | LIVE REVIEW
Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Sun 3 Feb
Tears for Fears support act and fellow 1980s survivor Alison Moyet [below] is in fine fettle tonight, and it’s not long before the first Yazoo number, Nobody’s Diary, shines from the set. It’s followed by a swampy voodoo tune in Beautiful Gun, with Moyet jerking around the mic stand, somewhere between the Martian girl from Mars Attacks! and a pill-popper at a rave. There’s a few stodgy numbers, like Goldfrapp devised for geriatrics, before a fine climax of Situation, Only You, solo hit Love Resurrection and Don’t Go, with Vince Clarke’s synth lines still glowing as brightly as the neon tubes illuminating the stage.
As a young goth circa 1983, I’m old enough to remember taping some of the John Peel show and the better songs from the Top 40 on my boombox and then copying them over, tape to tape, to make my own compilations. Some of the fads from the 80s have come back around – straight leg 501s and cassettes on sale in Urban Outfitters, big gated drums on chillwave tunes – but it’s for the best that Curt Smith’s rat-tail haircut hasn’t made a resurgence. Lorde’s version of Everybody Wants To Rule The World is, thankfully, just an aperitif before Tears For Fears [top] enter the stage and plough into the reassuring chug of the original, with Smith singing vocals and Roland Orzabal on guitar.
The band sound like Crowded House on Secret World before taking a happy trip through strawberry fields with the euphoric Sowing The Seeds Of Love, Orzabal and his man-bun easily hitting the high notes, his voice undiminished by time. Much of the set, even their lesser known 00s album Everybody Loves A Happy Ending, shows why they’re much loved by the older couples in attendance. Call Me Mellow is again in the 60s vein, “Then she knows it’s like a curse, to unify my universe” sounding like The La’s.
Their early 80s peaks of The Hurting and Songs From The Big Chair are visited with a soaring Pale Shelter and the busy Change, along with the unmistakeable tribal drums of Mad World. Memories Fade receives a subtle retool with the sax dialled down and tremolo guitar amped up instead.
Orzabal dabbles a in a bit of banter, with his family, friends and house cleaners from Bath in the audience – announcing this as the closest thing to a hometown gig. He jokes about checking for cobwebs but there’s no sign of gathering dust on most of the set – although there are a few tunes that could have been mothballed, like the lame 90s dance-pop of Break It Down Again, the insipid lounge tune Advice For The Young At Heart straying into Matt Bianco territory and the overlong gospel blues of Badman’s Song prompting visits to the bar.
Besides the brief dip in quality, a decent and genteel cover of Radiohead’s Creep is an intriguing choice, but lacks some of the self-loathing of the original, while the unforgettable piano motif of Head Over Heels prompts an ovation, with the scattering of younger fans and their raging teenage hormones relating to it on its own merits as well as recognising it from time-travelling emo classic Donnie Darko. The gorgeous hymn to female empowerment Woman In Chains, with backing vocalist Carina Round coming to the fore, is a lovely encore, and Shout – the best industrial-pop tune that Depeche Mode never sang –– reminds me of my self-made Top 40 compilations from 1984 and sends the packed audience out into the cold in a rejuvenated and thoroughly cathartic mood.
words CHRIS SEAL photos AIYUSH PACHNANDA
