cdollaz

Tracklist: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, History of Modern

1.” New Babies: New Toys”
2. “If You Want It”
3. “History Of Modern (Part I)”
4. “History Of Modern (Part II)”
5. “Sometimes”
6. “RFWK”
7. “New Holy Ground”
8. “The Future, The Past, and Forever After”
9. “Sister Mary Says”
10. “Pulse”
11. “The Night”
12. “Bondage Of Fate”
13. “The Right Side?”



Anyone else picking this up?

I've listened to about 2/3 of it so far and it is very solid. The synths sound much like their classic stuff.

RagingBull80

I didn't know they had anything new coming out. I'll give this a listen.

atlantamoi

First CD in 14 years and first with the mid-80's lineup in 26 years. Half of this is quite good, half is average and the first single is kind of sucky. But, I'll take it!

cdollaz

Yeah, I didn't care much for the single.

cdollaz

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/201...rk-tour-dates/

Synthpop vets Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark will bring their History of Modern tour to North America in March for a 16-date trek booked around the South By Southwest festival — the classic lineup’s first U.S. concerts since opening for Depeche Mode’s breakthrough Music for the Masses tour.

The reunited OMD — featuring co-founders Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, plus keyboardist Martin Cooper and drummer Malcolm Holmes — will begin the trek March 5 in Toronto and wrap up March 26 in San Francisco, with three dates at SXSW in Austin, Texas, slotted for mid-March (see full tour dates below).

The tour comes in support of last year’s History of Modern, OMD’s first new album since 1996’s Universal and its first with its classic lineup since 1986’s The Pacific Age.

For the North American shows, the band is selling special VIP and “gold” packages; the former, for $150, includes admittance to both the show and soundcheck, and a meet-and-greet with the band, as well as a T-shirt, autographed photo and a copy of the album. The latter package, for $100, includes all that, except for the meet-and-greet.

Full details on ticket packages are available at omd.brightantenna.com.


OMD History of Modern North American tour dates:

March 5: Phoenix Concert Theatre, Toronto, ON
March 6: Le National, Montreal, QC
March 7: Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
March 8: Webster Hall, New York, NY
March 10: 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.
March 12: Park West, Chicago, IL
March 14: The Loft, Atlanta, GA
March 16: House Of Blues, Houston, TX
March 17: SXSW, Austin, TX
March 18: SXSW, Austin, TX
March 19: SXSW, Austin, TX
March 20: Granada Theatre, Dallas, TX
March 22: Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO
March 23: Depot, Salt Lake City, UT
March 25: The Music Box, Los Angeles, CA
March 26: Regency Ballroom, San Francisco, CA


Pretty cheap too (at least for Houston). The GA seats, which are on the floor and the closest to the stage, are only $20.

atlantamoi

Sweet!! I can only attend one show a year (two little kids) and this one will be it! Thanks for posting.

cdollaz

Setlist from first show:

atlantamoi

Avoiding that setlist like the plague (love being surprised). Although I accidentally read one of my favorite old school songs is being replaced by that iffy '88 "hit". Can't wait... one more week.

Numanoid

I'm there this Saturday! The new album is excellent, too.

Boba Fett

I misread the topic title and thought, "How bizarre that OMC has a new album despite their frontman being deceased."

Numanoid

The show was absolutely amazing. Got a great spot just one person back from the stage, right in front of Paul's keyboard. Andy spent about a quarter of the show standing directly in front of me, like two feet away. We were literally dodging his sweat. His energy, for a 51 year-old is astounding. He was bouncing around almost non-stop. And despite having problems with his in-ear monitor (he tried replacing it at least half a dozen times), sounded pitch-perfect. He still has the range of his early recordings. I was watching Paul (who looks an awful lot like Tony Blair these days), and he seemed genuinely amazed and flattered by the reception given by the Chicago fans...and the crowd was extremely boisterous, moreso than any concert in my recent memory. A great night.

ResIpsa

Yeah, it's great when you can see that a band is genuinely surprised and flattered when the local crowd goes wild for them. Never knew Brits could sweat so much

atlantamoi

Awesome Numanoid! I'm trying not to get too excited about Atlanta tonight. I know most people in this country view OMD as those John Hughes one hit wonders, but those first four albums are among the best albums in my collection. I love that this tour is providing old farts like me AND younger people (like my wife) a chance to see them (although I'm guessing it's mostly older people at the show). I keep reading how energetic they've been every night and all the reviews have been enthusiastic. Can I do the devil horn hand shake to synth runs?

benedict

If you ever get the chance to see a recording of diminutive British comedian Lee Evans (maybe doing his Bohemian Rhapsody sketch), you will be even more disabused of this stereotyping of us cool Brits

[email protected]

I saw the Boston show last week, and was also very impressed. They sounded great, and the material held up much better than I would have expected!

Both Boston papers (Globe and Herald) gave the show strong reviews as well, which was nice to see:

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/artic..._the_paradise/

http://bostonherald.com/entertainmen..._the_paradise/

cdollaz

I am really looking forward to the show this Wed. The only other time I have seen OMD is on the Sugar Tax tour. I'm pretty sure that is the last time they came thru Houston, if not the whole USA.

Daytripper

Saw this show last Thursday at the 930 Club in D.C. And while tickets were still on sale, the place was packed. The crowd was quite interesting to say the least. Here is a band who hasn't released anything new with it's original lineup in over 23 years. And both early 90's O.M.D. albums didn't do all that well. But there were so many younger people at the show. And they weren't with older friends, brothers/sisters/etc. Just curious how they know this band. Anyway, the new album is very good so I'm glad they played a few songs live. They even opened with a new song. Which could have failed miserably, but they didn't. Andy McCluskey's energy was insane. Right out of the gate he was actively doing that "80's dance". Looking and sounding exactly the same way he did when I saw him open for Depeche Mode in 1988. His live performance simple made the crowd go crazy. He even pumped them up on new songs most haven't heard. A very rare accomplishment. A few years ago, also at the 930 Club, the great Chrissie Hyde was trying to get through some new songs to a very unwelcoming crowd and she stopped the band dead in it's tracks and said "O.K. I can see you guys aren't digging this so let's just jump into songs you do know and love". I've never seen anything like that either. But McCluskey started off the song by telling the crowd "This is a new song". Then followed by a "COME ON!!!" Dancing around. And "You can do better than that". And you know what? It worked. Quite the memorable show.

atlantamoi

That was a blast last night! So much fun. I have been reading a little about the performances from the past couple of weeks so I wasn't surprised about Andy's energy or the fact that we were probably going to get way more hits than influential oddities. What I didn't expect, and this made my heart sink when I walked in the door, was seeing OMD in a small club. Capacity at The Loft in Atlanta is only 650, but seemed much smaller to me. We walked right up to the little stage and were only four rows back for the whole performance. I've seen plenty of bands in small settings and usually prefer it that way, but I actually wish OMD had been on a larger stage. The sound might have been a little better and Andy could have run rampant all over the place. He commented that that was the smallest club they've played in since reforming four years ago and was full on sweat before finishing the first song. The reason I was a little sad was seeing them play a small place when they deserved better, but I don't think it sold out (close to it).

Anyway, I'm definitely of the old school songs for these dudes. Their first four albums are some my favorites of all time. I'd love nothing more than to see them go straight through "Dazzle Ships" and "Architecture & Morality", but realize with so many hits you can't really do that (unless stated ahead of time like they did a couple of years ago with the A&M tour). They only played "Radio Waves" from Dazzle and it was one of the best moments of the night. That song just kicks all kinds of ass over tunes from the second half of their career. Would love to have heard "Telegraph" and "Genetic Engineering", but knew that wasn't going to happen when Andy announced they were going to play it safe.

I do like their wimpier radio tunes like Dreaming and If You Leave. No problems there. It's just that those songs do pale a bit compared to some earlier moments. Hell, I LOVED the song "Locomotion" when I was 18, but it sounded very dated and a little boring last night. I guess that's a problem any band has with such a large catalog of good singles. Their newer work isn't that bad either. "History Of Modern" is a wonderful tune.

I'd been wanting to take my wife to see OMD for a long time. So happy they got the original members back and did this tour. I'd go see them again for sure! Oh, man... my frugal ways hurt last night. My crappy LG Rumor Touch phone took terrible video/pictures. I saw what the iPhone was doing around me and was very impressed with the quality others were getting.

atlantamoi

BTW, if you are a Dazzle Ships fan, this is worth checking out. Owen Pallet (Final Fantasy) doing the whole album solo in concert. This vid is only the first few songs, but there are more out there with the other tunes.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H4qkh66zlxI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Numanoid

^ Quite the novelty, but I could take only about two minutes of that before going all Bluto from Animal House on his violin.

Numanoid

That's sad to hear. In Chicago, they played the Park West, which must hold a couple thousand, and it was sold out and packed.

I dropped by OMD's official forum a few weeks ago, where Andy often joins in the discussion, and he addressed the issue of playing more hits versus more obscure fan favorites. He said that this tour will lose money as it is, but they wanted to generate some good word of mouth in order to come back for a later tour of deep cuts... maybe like they recently did in the UK playing the whole of Architecture & Morality.

atlantamoi

Yeah, I was confused about the small club. Atlanta is not as big as Chicago or New York, but it's not dullsville. Can't ever recall seeing such a difference between other cities. I'm happy they did put out a DVD of the A&M tour. That was pretty much what I'd want to see right there.

cdollaz

Great show last night. I've probably been to about 10 shows at the Houston HOB, and this was the most packed I have ever seen it. There was no room to move in the place. As mentioned above, they seemed genuinely moved and in awe of the positive response they received, as the crowd was yelling, dancing, and singing along the entire show. As expected the sing-alongs during If You Leave and Dreaming were enormous and drowned out Andy (his and Paul's voices both still sound great).

I would love for them to be able to do something like Dazzle Ships from front to back, but I'm not sure that would play with a U.S. audience. It would probably go over much better in Europe, where I would guess fans are more familiar and appreciative of the less popular OMD material. Perhaps not a whole album in the U.S, but I would love for them to play a few deeper cuts, like Native Daughters Of The Golden West, Speed of Light, Of All The Things We've Made, etc.

I thought the choice of Walking On The Milky Way as an encore was curious. Other than perhaps the new material, the crowd seemed to know the song the least, and Andy's attempts at a call-and-response brought a minimal response.

A couple of times, Andy referred to "not waiting 23 years again" to come back. I know that I saw OMD around 1992, so it hasn't been nearly that long since they have been here. Maybe he is talking about that particular version of the band.

cdollaz

BTW, does anyone have, or has anyone seen this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electri...onic_Orchestra



Or this:

Numanoid

I do have The Listening Pool album and several extended versions of a couple of the songs, but must confess that I don't remember whether I've even listened to them. I'll stick it on this weekend.

And thanks for the Electricity DVD...missed that somehow. I'll probably order it from Amazon.uk.