Postponed from yesterday, here are The Psychedelic Furs at the Colston Hall in Bristol on Monday 16th February 1987.
Which is kind of ironic, as you may have spotted that the gig was rescheduled from the ticket date of 28th November 1986, originally advertised in music newspaper Sounds:
I have absolutely no recollection of the gig (and seemingly the entire UK tour) being postponed, but following The Psychedelic Furs' appearance at Glastonbury in June, the band had embarked on an extensive 5 month tour of the US, so it would be understandable that they may have needed a breather before crossing the Atlantic.
What had propelled The Furs - and fifth album Midnight To Midnight - into the popular consciousness was their biggest hit to date, a re-recording of 1981 single Pretty In Pink, to accompany the John Hughes film of the same name.
Whilst Pretty In Pink got to #18, follow up singles Heartbreak Beat (October 1986) and Angels Don't Cry (January 1987) failed to repeat it's success in the UK, peaking at #79 and #85 respectively.
The tour delay may have been due to the scheduling of the album itself. Richard Butler has subsequently considered Midnight To Midnight to be "hollow, vapid and weak", citing pressure to get into a studio with producer Chris Kimsey to capitalise on the success of Pretty In Pink before the band was ready.
Remix dream team Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero got involved with the final mixes and whilst Midnight To Midnight is an unashamedly commercial effort, and not my favourite of their albums, it made perfect sense at the time and I loved it.
So did the record buying public. Midnight To Midnight entered the album chart #12 days after the first rescheduled gig in Newcastle, and stayed in the Top 100 for the remainder of the tour, even if it was a fairly rapid descent after that.
Moving the tour date did mean that the original Friday night gig ended up being on a Monday, so it was a school night. Boo! On the plus side, the new date would have been just over a week after my girlfriend Claire's birthday and would therefore have felt extra special.
I'm pretty sure that we were a party of four, one of the party being Claire's best friend Jo. I feel embarrassed to say this but I cannot for the life of my remember who the fourth person was. Jo may have had a boyfriend, it may have been Claire's younger brother Paul, it may have been another classmate that I've shamefully forgotten. We probably got a lift from suburban Bristol to the city centre and back again, courtesy of Claire's mum.
We had balcony seats near the stage, on the left side and we eagerly awaited the start of the show. Although the date had changed, this was still my fourth ever gig - following Depeche Mode, O.M.D. and The Damned - so I was hugely excited.
At the point, I only owned one album by The Psychedelic Furs, 1982's Forever Now bought the previous year, plus the Midnight To Midnight singles on 12". My brother owned Talk Talk Talk and Mirror Moves, so I was familiar with some but not all of their catalogue.
Support came from The Ward Brothers, whose single Cross That Bridge had been released in December 1986 but by the time of the Colston Hall show, had managed to crack the Top 40. Forty years later, I can remember the promo photo on their Discogs page, but very little about their music or their performance that night.
And yes, they were actually brothers, Dave, Derek and Graham. Maybe that appealed to siblings Richard and Tim Butler and secured them the support slot...? Weirder things have happened.
The Psychedelic Furs were all Claire and I were interested in though, and eventually they took to the stage, launching into the title track of Midnight To Midnight. Richard and Tim were joined by original member John Ashton (guitar) and relative newbies Mars Williams (sax) and Paul Garisto (drums).
I will confess that I found Mars unintentionally hilarious throughout. I'm not sure if Claire felt quite the same way about him, or was just caught up in my unfettered mirth whenever Mars had a solo or a particularly energetic burst of activity.
I was mortified when he glanced up towards us at one point. Mars won't have heard us. or could possibly have known that we were helplessly amused by him. Even so, I was convinced that he was giving us daggers and that he just knew.
Not to give the impression that I spent the evening obsessed with Mars' movements on stage, The Psychedelic Furs were excellent. On a scale that seemed to change with each successive gig, this was absolutely, definitely the best gig I had even been to, of the four that I had been to.
Looking back at the setlist four decades on, it's a pretty good sequence of songs. Midnight To Midnight is well represented with seven of the ten songs performed that night, though not then-recent single Angels Don't Cry.. Surprisingly, over half of Mirror Moves, their previous album from 1984, gets an airing but only two each from Talk Talk Talk (three if you double count Pretty In Pink) and their self-titled debut.
Many of the songs have since become much loved: Alice's House, All Of The Law, Highwire Days, Into You Like A Train, Mr. Jones, Shadow In My Heart, Sister Europe. Hard to believe that in February 1987 I was largely unfamiliar with them.
Of course, the crowdpleasers were also present and correct with Heaven (which I hated), Heartbeat (which I loved) and Love My Way (transcendent). The set closed with another new song Shock, which was a single in the USA and really should have been released in the UK too.
An encore was inevitable, as there was a notable omission from the main show. After a blistering take on Mr. Jones, the much anticipated Pretty In Pink arrived, and it didn't disappoint.
What we weren't expecting was a second encore of three songs, President Gas, Into You Like A Train and, finally, the magnificent India, the opening song of their debut album but a brilliant way to bring the night to an end.
I've recreated the setlist for today's selection, mostly album versions, with a couple of single mixes and a John Peel session to spice up the mix.
I've seen The Psychedelic Furs twice more since, in February 1990 and July 2012, seeing Mars Williams again at the latter and telepathically apologising for my childish behaviour in 1987.
In January 2027, nearly forty years on from that Colston Hall show, I will be seeing the Psychedelic Furs for the fourth time, at the same venue, albeit now known at the Bristol Beacon. Names may have changed, people may have got (much) older, but my love for The Psychedelic Furs remains undimmed.
1) Midnight To Midnight (Album Version) (1986)
2) Alice's House (Album Version) (1984)
3) Here Come Cowboys (Remix Edit By Keith Forsey) (1984)
4) Shadow In My Heart (Album Version) (1986)
5) Highwire Days (Album Version) (1984)
6) Heartbreak Beat (Album Version) (1986)
7) Love My Way (Album Version) (1982)
8) Heaven (Album Version) (1984)
9) Heartbeat (Album Version) (1984)
10) All Of The Law (Album Version) (1986)
11) Sister Europe (Single Version) (1980)
12) Sleep Comes Down (Album Version) (1982)
13) One More Word (Album Version) (1986)
14) Shock (Single Mix By Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero) (1987)
[encore #1]
15) Mr. Jones (Album Version) (1980)
16) Pretty In Pink ('Midnight To Midnight' Album Version) (1986)
[encore #2]
17) President Gas (Album Version) (1982)
18) Into You Like A Train (John Peel Session) (1981)
19) India (Album Version) (1980)
1980: Sister Europe EP: 11
1980: The Psychedelic Furs: 19
1981: Talk Talk Talk: 15
1982: Forever Now: 7, 12, 17
1984: Here Come Cowboys EP: 3
1984: Mirror Moves: 2, 5, 8, 9
1986: Midnight To Midnight: 1, 4, 6, 10, 13, 16
1987: Shock EP: 14
1997: Radio One Sessions: 18
All Sirens And Love Songs (1:22:47) (GD) (M)
