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Setlist
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The amazing Retro Futura tour just stopped by the State Theatre last week (August 17th).
If you’re a fan of 80s pop/rock bands, you love all of these bands. Sure, some people consider them one-hit wonders, but who cares, they’re still great songs. Nothing can change that.
Unfortunately, with six bands on the bill and a limited time, all of the bands had about a 15-20 minute set, with the exception of headliner Howard Jones having about a 55-min set. With a very short set, that meant that every opening band had about three or four songs. That’s just fine with the audience, as they wanted to hear the big hit songs and weren’t interested in hearing the obscure songs.
According to the original schedule, Katrina Leskanich formerly of Katrina and the Waves was supposed to start her set slightly earlier than 7pm. Since she started late, all the other bands had to cut their set short as well to meet their curfew of 10pm.
A couple of Katrina and the Waves’ hits were played, including 1984 song ‘Going Down to Liverpool’, which was covered by the Bangles, and ending with their biggest chart-topping song ‘Walking on Sunshine’.
It didn’t take long before Paul Young and his band came on stage, reusing some of the instruments. Young said that this was only his second time in Minneapolis, and had a hard time remembering the first time, “It was 1985... ’86 or something.”
This was a truly rare appearance by the 80s teen idol, so there were a lot of people in the audience that waited so long to finally see him. Of course, his biggest hit (at least in America), ‘Everytime You Go Away’ was played, sandwiched between ‘I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down’ and ‘Come Back and Stay’. The latter is technically a Jack Lee song, but Young made it famous with his 1983 recording.
Next up was Modern English, the new wave/post-punk band from Colchester, England. If you grew up in the 80s, you would have heard their signature song ‘I Melt With You’. The song was so popular that a lot of fast food restaurant licensed the song for their commercials.
Dressed in all white, the band looked in great shape. In fact, singer Robbie Grey, after taking off his white jacket, said that they have a new album and that they were returning to the Turf Club in St Paul later this year.
The new album they were referring to is called Take Me To The Trees, which came out last year. They played ‘Moonbeam’ from that new record, in between their two hit singles ‘Ink and Paper’ and ‘I Melt With You’. For the latter song, Paul Young joined them on stage midsong.
British band The Beat (known as The English Beat in America and The British Beat in Australia), stood out the most, because of their large band lineup (singer/guitarist Dave Wakeling, hype man King Schascha, drummer Nucci Cantrell, saxophonist Matt Morrish, keys Kevin Lum, additional keyboardist Minh Quan, and bassist Brad Engstrom) and unique ska, reggae, soul, pop music fusion. On top of that, they have King Schascha, replacing Ranking Roger’s role as hype man, and he truly seems to enjoy being on stage.
For their biggest hit song ‘Save It for Later’ (a song used in various commercials, such as taffy candy Now and Later), King Schascha came on stage in a Spider-Man costume, recording the entire event with a fan’s phone. That fan will never, ever forget this moment in time.
The lone Canadian band Men Without Hats was next. Although the band were big in the U.S. in the 80s, the band broke up in the 90s and didn’t reformed until 2011. In fact, we were so excited, we flew to Canada to catch them on their tour at NXNE 2011.
‘Where Do the Boys Go?’ was dedicated to former Men Without Hats member Allan McCarthy, who died in 1995. The song was between their two well-known songs ‘Pop Goes the World’ and ‘The Safety Dance’. For the latter, it goes without saying, that everyone in the audience was dancing: “We can dance if we want to we can leave your friends behind, 'cause your friends don't dance and if they don’t dance, well, they're no friends of mine.”
Headliner Howard Jones needed that extra time on his set, because he had multiple top 40 hits. His set included almost all of his known hit singles, including his first single ‘New Song’ from September 1983. Referencing that his music video for the song opened with him at a food processing plant (and then started to sound like he was humming to the tune of The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ when he said “I was working as a caretaker at a food processing center”).
His set was a regular sing along, especially during ‘No One Is to Blame’, ‘What Is Love?’ and set closer ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. The last song ended and restarted as a techno version, playing to the loud cheering crowd.
This is an incredible lineup for your favorite 80s bands. My only gripe, as shared with most fans in the audience, if they had made this an all-day event on Saturday (like Rock the Garden), they can start the show earlier at 3pm and give each band their proper spotlight with a longer set.
If you’re a fan of 80s pop/rock bands, you love all of these bands. Sure, some people consider them one-hit wonders, but who cares, they’re still great songs. Nothing can change that.
Unfortunately, with six bands on the bill and a limited time, all of the bands had about a 15-20 minute set, with the exception of headliner Howard Jones having about a 55-min set. With a very short set, that meant that every opening band had about three or four songs. That’s just fine with the audience, as they wanted to hear the big hit songs and weren’t interested in hearing the obscure songs.
According to the original schedule, Katrina Leskanich formerly of Katrina and the Waves was supposed to start her set slightly earlier than 7pm. Since she started late, all the other bands had to cut their set short as well to meet their curfew of 10pm.
A couple of Katrina and the Waves’ hits were played, including 1984 song ‘Going Down to Liverpool’, which was covered by the Bangles, and ending with their biggest chart-topping song ‘Walking on Sunshine’.
It didn’t take long before Paul Young and his band came on stage, reusing some of the instruments. Young said that this was only his second time in Minneapolis, and had a hard time remembering the first time, “It was 1985... ’86 or something.”
This was a truly rare appearance by the 80s teen idol, so there were a lot of people in the audience that waited so long to finally see him. Of course, his biggest hit (at least in America), ‘Everytime You Go Away’ was played, sandwiched between ‘I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down’ and ‘Come Back and Stay’. The latter is technically a Jack Lee song, but Young made it famous with his 1983 recording.
Next up was Modern English, the new wave/post-punk band from Colchester, England. If you grew up in the 80s, you would have heard their signature song ‘I Melt With You’. The song was so popular that a lot of fast food restaurant licensed the song for their commercials.
Dressed in all white, the band looked in great shape. In fact, singer Robbie Grey, after taking off his white jacket, said that they have a new album and that they were returning to the Turf Club in St Paul later this year.
The new album they were referring to is called Take Me To The Trees, which came out last year. They played ‘Moonbeam’ from that new record, in between their two hit singles ‘Ink and Paper’ and ‘I Melt With You’. For the latter song, Paul Young joined them on stage midsong.
British band The Beat (known as The English Beat in America and The British Beat in Australia), stood out the most, because of their large band lineup (singer/guitarist Dave Wakeling, hype man King Schascha, drummer Nucci Cantrell, saxophonist Matt Morrish, keys Kevin Lum, additional keyboardist Minh Quan, and bassist Brad Engstrom) and unique ska, reggae, soul, pop music fusion. On top of that, they have King Schascha, replacing Ranking Roger’s role as hype man, and he truly seems to enjoy being on stage.
For their biggest hit song ‘Save It for Later’ (a song used in various commercials, such as taffy candy Now and Later), King Schascha came on stage in a Spider-Man costume, recording the entire event with a fan’s phone. That fan will never, ever forget this moment in time.
The lone Canadian band Men Without Hats was next. Although the band were big in the U.S. in the 80s, the band broke up in the 90s and didn’t reformed until 2011. In fact, we were so excited, we flew to Canada to catch them on their tour at NXNE 2011.
‘Where Do the Boys Go?’ was dedicated to former Men Without Hats member Allan McCarthy, who died in 1995. The song was between their two well-known songs ‘Pop Goes the World’ and ‘The Safety Dance’. For the latter, it goes without saying, that everyone in the audience was dancing: “We can dance if we want to we can leave your friends behind, 'cause your friends don't dance and if they don’t dance, well, they're no friends of mine.”
Headliner Howard Jones needed that extra time on his set, because he had multiple top 40 hits. His set included almost all of his known hit singles, including his first single ‘New Song’ from September 1983. Referencing that his music video for the song opened with him at a food processing plant (and then started to sound like he was humming to the tune of The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ when he said “I was working as a caretaker at a food processing center”).
His set was a regular sing along, especially during ‘No One Is to Blame’, ‘What Is Love?’ and set closer ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. The last song ended and restarted as a techno version, playing to the loud cheering crowd.
This is an incredible lineup for your favorite 80s bands. My only gripe, as shared with most fans in the audience, if they had made this an all-day event on Saturday (like Rock the Garden), they can start the show earlier at 3pm and give each band their proper spotlight with a longer set.
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Katrina (ex-Katrina and the Waves) |
Paul Young |
Modern English (with Paul Young) |
Modern English |
Men Without Hats |
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The Beat |
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Men Without Hats |
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The Beat |
The Beat |
Men Without Hats |
Howard Jones |
Howard Jones |
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Howard Jones at State Theatre, Minneapolis (17 August 2017) |
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