Get out the eyeliner and head to Big Top to revisit the 1980s!

Date Published: {J}

By Declan Tierney

It is amazing and remains a mystery why we are still captivated by 1980s music and everything that went with it. Fluorescent heels, shoulder pads that would present difficulties getting through a doorway and buckets of mascara and eyeliner . . . and these were just the male members of the bands.

It was an era when flamboyance was the name of the game and we were introduced for the first time to the term ‘gender benders’.

There were times when one would be reluctant to admit that they had bought an album by or even listened to the likes of Adam and the Ants, Duran Duran, Culture Club or Bronski Beat. Madness were always a safe bet at the time.

You could get away with buying a Madness LP alright. The Camden Town lads were the real pioneers of Ska although some would argue that The Specials were the real deal in this regard. So while we were listening and having doubts about the sexuality of some of the bands during the earlier part of the ‘80s in particular, the whole electro pop culture was beginning to develop with synthesisers replacing drummers, guitarists and nearly everything else that made up a band.

Depeche Mode and Soft Cell were among the first groups to be labelled electro pop and so too were The Human League who are to descend upon us for the Galway Arts Festival on July 24 and will be supported by Heaven 17, also from the ‘80s. An ideal opportunity to rescue the green velvet jacket from the recesses of the wardrobe When it was announced that The Human League would be appearing in Galway, it prompted the lyrics “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar . . .” to come flowing out with ease and so on until it came to the actual title of the song, Don’t You Want Me?

And what other hits did they have? It was asked. Well there was . . . whatyacallit again? And there was another one but the name escapes me. It was time to Google The Human League and embark on a refresher course to see what are they were up to and to find out the names of those lesser known hits but big sellers nonetheless.

There are times when some ‘80s pop bands reemerge after years in the wilderness, their make up bearing scant resemblance to the band members who performed at their peak. Fortunately, the same cannot be said of The Human League.

Yes, Phil Oakey is still going strong while the two backing singers on that 1981 anthem, Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley continue to be an integral part of the line up.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.