Advertisement
The Bangles don't kick off their official reunion tour until next week (Sept. 13 in San Diego), but fans in the know or tipped off by news outlets were able to catch the band's warm-up performance at a "secret" show last Friday at L.A.'s ultra-hip Spaceland club. It was far from the frenzied mob scene that greeted Weezer at a similar unannounced Spaceland gig in June, but the Sixties-loving, all-girl hit machine -- billed tonight as "Liquid Circus" -- did attract an enthusiastic, over-capacity crowd.
After getting the show off to a less than thrilling start with a shaky version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic "Hazy Shade of Winter" (which they recorded for the soundtrack to 1988's Less Than Zero), Vicki made light of the lackluster performance by announcing, "Welcome to our public rehearsal." (Later in the evening, when even more moments of tedium set in, they hoped to buy some sympathy by reminding the crowd that they were really Liquid Circus -- a Bangles tribute band.) The Merry-Go-Round's "Live" followed "Winter" in similar momentum-lacking fashion, but things finally fell into place during a romp through Jules Shear's joyful pop gem "If She Knew What She Wants." After opening with three non-originals, it was time to unveil a new song, and "Between the Two" joined titles such as "Here Right Now," "Take Care Of You," "Ride the Ride" and "Stealing Rosemary" as a preview of the band's new material, all of it thankfully rooted in the tradition of Sixties harmony pop that fans have come to expect from the band.
The Prince, er, "Christopher"-penned "Manic Monday" was utterly dreamy, even during the point where Hoffs got stumped and flubbed the lyrics. A pleasant surprise was the song's detour into Lou Reed's "I'm Waiting for the Man." Steele's vocal spotlight came during Big Star's "September Gurls," which proved to be a little rusty, but a crowd-pleaser nevertheless. When one audience member shouted out for the vintage "Mary Street," Hoffs giggled and responded "Next time, after we learn how to play it," but fans thirsting for the group's older tunes were thrown the driving power-pop of "Hero Takes the Fall" and a stunning "Going Down to Liverpool," from 1984's All Over the Place.
Mid-set, all four band members lined up in front of microphones for a cover of We Five's AM radio folk/pop favorite "You Were On My Mind," which demonstrated the splendor of their vocal harmonies to full effect. Following Debbie's hopefully sarcastic introduction of "Here's another folk song," the band launched into the inevitable "Walk Like an Egyptian." The only saving grace of of this record label-enforced Eighties pop dreck was when the song descended into a brief snippet from Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson." Slightly more joyous was "In Your Room," possibly their finest post-debut album song and one of the group's few all-original stabs at recreating the perfect power-pop single.
During the encore, the dark cloud of the evening was finally unveiled as the foursome once again all took mikes to beautifully croon the miserable "Eternal Flame," while the Docker-clad members of the audience waved their lighters in unison. With the requisite "arena rock moment" out of the way, things returned to normal with the gorgeous "Dover Beach" (another chestnut from the debut album). The show closed with a rousing psych-rock sendup of Love's "7 and 7 Is," in which the band proved their Sixties roots were still very much intact and that no matter who's writing their songs -- Alex Chilton, Prince, Arthur Lee or the schmucks who wrote hits for R.E.O. Speedwagon and Madonna -- the Bangles can sing them better than anyone else on the planet.
JIM FREEK
(September 6, 2000)