Alive and Kicking at Jones Beach

Soft Cell was on stage at Jones Beach Theater singing the extremely catchy 2022 single, “Nostalgia Machine”, when a quick review of the crowd made it clear that many of those in attendance watching Marc Almond and David Ball play were there to indulge in their own versions of a nostalgia machine. After all, Soft Cell (“Tainted Love”) was the middle act in a threesome starting with Modern English (“I Melt With You”) and finishing with headliners Simple Minds (“Don’t You Forget About Me”). But anybody who thought this show was going to be a brisk walk through the pages of their high school yearbooks would discover these three bands weren’t there to simply provide a sonic stroll down memory lane.

The tour is being billed as the Simple Minds Alive and Kicking tour so it would be easy to assume this would be another version of the “Whatever happened to…” annual forays featuring three to five bands each playing three to five songs specially built for Gen-Xers to get their “remember when” on. Don’t get me wrong, those tours are welcomed with open arms for a reason; they usually feature bands that haven’t toured the US since the time of shoulder pads and spandex. But that wasn’t this. This tour was something different – not just a walk down memory lane, but a reminder that musicians don’t stop creating just because they no longer rate on the charts.

Modern English seemed to mock all of this nostalgia with their two opening songs, “Gathering Dust” from 1981’s Mesh and Lace and “Long in the Tooth” from last year’s 1234. The latter is Modern English at their best: a beat that’s infectious paired with Robbie Grey’s wry lyrics. The other four songs in the set might have been singles from the two 80s albums familiar to US audiences, but “Long in the Tooth” lingered on as a reminder to regularly update your record collection with new albums (or update your Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube playlists with fresh songs depending on your personal vernacular).

It was slightly weird seeing Soft Cell while light still filled the sky. They always seemed like a band solely for late night clubs. Seedy, late night clubs. I can’t think of a single picture of the band where they aren’t both decked head to foot in all black, often with Almond wearing an almost aggressive amount of black eyeliner. They certainly don’t come to mind when I think of bands playing waterfront amphitheaters in the daytime.

Despite the incongruity of the situation, Almond and Ball were at their finest. As their set began, Almond seemed amused, perhaps a tiny bit perplexed, by the setting. It took little time for him to seemingly embrace the awkward, owning it, belting out lyrics like, “Out in clubland, having fun. And now I’m hiding from the sun”.

The set was a well curated list perfect for an audience seeking sentimentality, but needing to be pulled into the now. Yes, you were served your “Tainted Love” (sadly, no “Sex Dwarf”), but you also got a healthy dose of the present with the aforementioned “Nostalgia Machine” and the 2022 Pet Shop Boys collaboration, “Purple Zone”. The two new tracks fit perfectly with the old to create the ultimate playlist for those nights when you need a little extra shove to get you out of the living room and back into those late night clubs, even if you have to do it a bit earlier in the evening.

It was somewhat exquisite timing for this stop on the tour. Simple Minds has billed it as a 40th anniversary celebration of Once Upon a Time, the album that solidified their success on this side of the Atlantic. The band had been steadily building a following with their earlier albums, but it was their reluctant decision to record “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, that propelled them to the top of the Billboard charts and into the national consciousness. Hot on the heels of that success, the band started recording Once Upon a Time, first in the UK, but moving to Bearsville Studio in upstate New York in June, 1985 to finish it.

So it was against the backdrop of this 40 year coincidence that Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill met a near sellout crowd at Jones Beach. The two lifelong friends may be the only remaining members of the original band, but they carry the same energy and stage presence they did when the M in MTV wasn’t superfluous. Maybe more. Kerr was sporting a pair of skinny jeans that, based on the way in which he bounded around the stage, had to have had slightly more than the average amount of stretch generally found in menswear. He leaped from riser to floor, striking poses that would have had me on the couch with a handful of analgesics for at least a day and a half had I’d attempted them.

They opened with 1983’s “Waterfront”, which felt perfectly suited to a theater on an actual waterfront. From there, they worked through an almost 50 year back catalog that resulted in worldwide hits like “This is Your Land” and “Promised You a Miracle”. They were surrounded by a band of musicians that stuck mostly to the back half of the stage, despite any one of them being talented enough to occupy the front. Together, they pumped new energy into their early hits. Despite some of those earlier, pre-Breakfast Club songs being somewhat foreign to this mostly American audience, they felt anthemic in this setting, with this line up.

Simple Minds have an enviable back catalog and the setlist kept the 40th anniversary theme almost exclusively to the 80s and early 90s, despite having released a bevy of excellent albums in the ensuing decades. The long exception was “Midnight Walking” from their 2014 album, Big Music. They were smart to play “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” just before the encore, leaving the biggest self-penned hits to close out the show.

It goes without saying their only number one in the States was met with unbridled enthusiasm by this crowd that considers it and the movie it was attached to cultural canon. The band didn’t just play the song, they presented it as a full on experience. Kerr joked about the only contribution to the lyrics on his part was the “la’s” at the end (he failed to give himself credit for those opening “heys”). By the time they reached the end of the song, after having encouraged the audience to sing those “la’s” in different languages (pronounced universally as “la’s”), I was ready to hear the big, Live Aid stadium-sized singles from Once Upon a Time.

The band returned from the encore to backing vocalist Sarah Brown’s remarkable take on “Book of Brilliant Things”. Her performance, alongside Cherisse Osei’s epic drum solo earlier in the set, were two of the standout moments of the show. It shows a rare generosity of spirit for established musicians to happily give up the spotlight to showcase someone else’s talent, but it seemed emblematic of the ethos guiding Kerr and Burchill.

The band ended the show with the two biggest hits from Once Upon a Time, “Alive and Kicking” and “Sanctify Yourself”. The two tracks sounded as vibrant and, well, important, as they did 40 years ago. Despite the unexpected chill blowing across the water and the dread of knowing they were all going to have to navigate their way out of the Jones Beach parking lot, the audience left the venue elated. Like those two closing tracks, there is little doubt that as long as Kerr and Burchill continue their partnership, Simple Minds will continue to be as vibrant and feel as important as they did when they walked into that recording studio so long ago.

You can catch the Modern English, Soft Cell and Simple Minds on tour at these remaining stops (You can find more pictures after the tour dates):

06/17 – Montreal, QC @ Centre Bell
06/18 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
06/20 – Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
06/21 – Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre
06/22 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
6/27 – Glasgow, UK, Bellahouston Park
6/28 – Lincoln, UK, Lincoln Castle
6/29 – Southampton, UK, Southampton
7/1 – Dublin, IE, Trinity
7/3 – Bedford, UK, Bedford
7/6 – Lytham St Annes, UK
7/7 – Halifax, UK
7/8 – Derby, UK