Being a child of the 80s, I was saddened to see A Flock of Seagulls cancel their show at the House of Blues earlier this year. It had been a little over five years since the band had played the city last at Generations Hall (Metropolitan), so the cancellation was depressing to say the least. STRANGELOVE - The Depeche Mode Experience, was slated to open the cancelled show and still played with another cover band opening. Much to my surprise, AFOS rescheduled their abandoned date and brought back with them STRANGELOVE.
STRANGELOVE kicked off the evening with a whopping seventeen song set, that was broken into two parts, a non-drum set and a drum set which featured former Berlin member, Chris Olivas. It is hard not to like STRANGELOVE if you are any type of DEPECH Mode fan. There is a fine line between camp and homage and STRANGELOVE does not even come close to crossing it. Yes, the set has it bit on campiness, but if you have ever seen DM live, it is clearly in context of what would happen during a DM show.
A Flock of Seagulls now only has one original member, Mike Score, but it really does not matter as his voice is what you have known AFOS to be all these years. Their set, although drastically shorter than the one prier, and less an encore, was a trip down memory lane and a glorious sing along all evening long. Eighties music live suffers in form of translation live, but the audience takes it in stride allowing the need for nostalgia not mar the experience at hand. AFOS seem to have fallen into that packet, but judging by the crowd and everyone singing along, it really did not matter. You can see more picture of this truly fun show here.
