Location: Lignano Sabbiadoro / Arena Alpe Adria / Italy
Date: 29.07.2014
Lignano is a pleasant Italian seaside resort near Udine, and with its slightly dreamy, if not romantic, vibe it’s tailor-made for summer shows by some of the big names in music. This time the town played host to one of the most beloved and respected bands of the eighties, the legendary Scottish masters of new wave and pop rock, Simple Minds. Riding hits like “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, “Alive and Kicking” and “Belfast Child”, they were one of the most popular acts of their day in the eighties, filling stadiums wherever they turned up like it was nothing, before a sharp commercial decline followed in the nineties. Since around 2000, interest in their music has slowly come back to life, which gave the cult band fresh energy, and ever since they’ve been very active again, playing venues all over the world. The Lignano show was part of the “Greatest Hits + 2014” tour, on which they play some of their biggest hits as well as some newer and lesser-known tracks.
The core of the band, made up of the two original members, the still hugely charismatic singer Jim Kerr and the excellent guitarist/occasional keyboardist Charlie Burchill, with longtime drummer Mel Gaynor keeping them company, remains rock solid, and the years simply don’t show when they’re on stage. Keyboardist Andy Gillespie, who has been part of the Simple Minds lineup since 2002, and bassist Ged Grimes, who only joined in 2010, have a much shorter tenure. The fact that they didn’t play on the band’s biggest hits goes completely unnoticed, though, because both are masters of their instruments and perfectly understand the philosophy and work ethic of these Scottish new wave titans. Since 2009 they’ve been joined at their live shows by the excellent guest singer Sarah Brown, whose r’n’b and soul touches nicely complement Kerr’s lead vocals, and who occasionally steps into the “leading role” herself. And here’s a fun tidbit for all the prog rock fans: during the 1990 concert tour, the guest member of Simple Minds was former Jethro Tull keyboardist Peter-John Wetesse, who adored anything that smelled of an electronic-digital approach to keyboards.
Simple Minds opened their Lignano show with the spirited hit “Waterfront”, one of their most beloved achievements and thus an almost ideal concert opener. This time the lyrics about rain fit perfectly with the increasingly cloudy sky. It’s simply incredible how well preserved the vocal cords are on Kerr, who was in superb spirits all evening and is one of those “old school” singers, his microphone connected by a long cable throughout the entire show. In the background, Brown provided passionate backing vocals, having hung a big triangle-shaped earring on herself for the occasion.
Alongside the beloved, long-standing standards, we also heard a few newer songs that evening, like the single “Broken Glass Park”, released in 2013. One of their first singles, “Love Song”, took us back in spirit to 1981, when Simple Minds were slowly molting from post-punk into new wave and pop rock. As expected, the threatening rainy weather didn’t bother the Scots in the slightest. Even during the downpour that broke out in the middle of the rousing hit “Mandela Song”, they kept their performance at an exceptionally high level and carried it off as professionally as you could ask. The heavy rain, of course, hit the crowd that much harder, and it took them quite a while to pull themselves together and step up to fill in for Kerr as he handed them the refrains between songs. “Mandela Day”, on the first anniversary of the death of this great fighter against Apartheid, sounded remarkably timely in the middle of the evening, and all the more moving for it.
The rain didn’t let up until the very end of the Simple Minds set, although things did slowly improve. One of the bigger surprises was “Hunter And Hunted”, which wasn’t exactly a hit but is still an excellent, synth-driven piece on which keyboardist Andy Gillespie shone with a great solo. It was followed by splendid renditions of two big hits, “Promised You a Miracle” and “Glittering Prize”, where the drenched crowd finally found its connection with the band again and gave itself over to the incredible atmospheric magic, which not even the rain coming down like sharpened stakes, mercilessly pelting from the sky for quite a while, could dampen. With “Imagination”, Simple Minds played a completely new song, which will probably appear on the upcoming studio album “Big Music”. Its release is announced for October 2014.
The oldest song of the evening was “I Travel”, with its post-punk rhythmic approach and visible influence of early Roxy Music, meaning it was written before Simple Minds achieved worldwide fame. With “Dolphins” they jumped to the era of the album “Black & White 050505” (2005), one more proof that they don’t neglect their recent period either, when after the turn of the millennium they “rose from the dead” and successfully revived interest in their music. One of the highlights of the evening was certainly the excellent rendition of the art rock-spiced instrumental “Theme For A Great Cities”, where keyboardist Gillespie especially shone, treating himself to chewing gum for the occasion and pulling some downright hilarious faces with it.
In 2001 Simple Minds released a covers album called “Neon Lights”, which included their version of the classic “Dancing Barefoot”, originally by Patti Smith. That was followed by a cover of the American new wave band The Call, “Let The Day Begin”, which Simple Minds fans could first hear on the special double version of the album “Graffiti Soul” (2009). Covers tend to get on most people’s nerves, especially those seeing a band live for the first time, but Simple Minds completely “adopted” both of these, so there was no reason for a bad mood. Then they wowed us with a phenomenal version of the big hit “Someone, Somewhere in Summertime”, whose nostalgic pulse and lyrics matched the summery seaside ambience of this magical evening perfectly. The members of Simple Minds have very mixed feelings when they think back on the nineties, but “See The Lights”, which we heard that evening, came out on the album “Real Life” (1991), their last classic, worldwide success.
They wrapped up the main set with their biggest hit, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, where not even the impossible weather could spoil the magic of the moment. The crowd, dominated by middle-aged guys with more gray streaks than they’d like and disillusioned, worn-down housewives who were lively teenagers back in the heyday of Simple Minds’ success, knew most of the lyrics by heart (at least when it came to the hits) despite the traditionally poor Italian English, which meant they eagerly stood in for Kerr whenever he offered up individual choruses for them to sing.
The first encore held two surprises: the new song “Big Music”, which will almost certainly appear on the upcoming album of the same name, while the classic “New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)” continued the string of successful standards from the album of the same name, the groundbreaking 1982 studio record that brought them their worldwide breakthrough. The second encore, to the great delight of all the longtime Simple Minds fans, as well as those who know and cherish mostly their biggest (radio) hits, featured the lesser-known “Let It All Come Down” and then two big hits, “Alive and Kicking” and “Sanctify Yourself”. Sadly, the evening’s many highlights were over far too fast, just when the weather had relatively stabilized and the mood in front of the stage had really come alive. Proof that “Sanctify Yourself” was the last act of the night came when the band thanked the crowd for its support to the sounds of Bowie’s classic “The Jean Genie”, after which the members slowly said their goodbyes and left the stage. Kerr was in no hurry, though, leaving last and, with the beloved Bowie evergreen as his soundtrack, showing off a few funny dance moves on the way out.
Even though almost all of us ended up soaked to the bone under the stage, Simple Minds’ show in Lignano was a real treat for every nostalgic fan of big new wave hits with the occasional dose of art rock molasses. The sound was very good even during the storm, while the stage lighting was a real feast for the eyes. It was a bit irritating at times that some people in the crowd went overboard with their umbrellas, which repeatedly blocked the view of the whole stage and all the band members, but despite that annoyance we could still see throughout the whole concert that Simple Minds are a band that remains young at heart and sounds no worse than in the days of their greatest feats. Legendary new wave bands aren’t easy to catch up close these days, so we were really lucky that Simple Minds showed up relatively close to our border. Of course, it was impossible to hear every single eighties hit that night, and we missed “Belfast Child” and “All The Things She Said”, for instance, but we did get superbly played and sung standards from almost every chapter of their rich career.
author: Peter Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Waterfront
2. Broken Glass Park
3. Love Song
4. Mandela Day
5. Hunter and the Hunted
6. Promised You a Miracle
7. Glittering Prize
8. Imagination
9. I Travel
10. Dolphins
11. Theme For Great Cities
12. Dancing Barefoot (orig. Patti Smith)
13. Let the Day Begin (orig. The Call)
14. Someone Somewhere In Summertime
15. See The Lights
16. Don’t You (Forget About Me)
—encore I.—
17. Big Music
18. New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
—encore II.—
19. Let It All Come Down
20. Alive and Kicking
21. Sanctify Yourself
