When I found out earlier in the week about this 80’s show called Hello Yesterday I was pretty excited. When I heard about the price of the ticket I became a bit skeptical. I thought about it for a few days before pulling the trigger on a purchase. I came to the conclusion that since I had never seen any of the 6 bands playing the show, it was going to be outdoors and the weather was forecasted to be amazing plus with us only a few days away from the official start of fall I decided this was something I should do. So I bought my ticket and started to do a bit of research on the bands I wasn’t too familiar with and the few that I wanted to see more than the others. While the high ticket price made me consider not going the bottom line is that I just love music too much and seeing 6 bands I’ve heard of and have mostly enjoyed to different extents in my life was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
After walking through LaSalle Park and arriving at the gate I noticed that it was a perfect day to have this festival and that apparently a lot of people did not agree with something about it because it was desolate. When I arrived the show hadn’t really gotten underway but that was still no excuse for the place to be so empty. It looked like they fenced off an area around the Pavilion that could accommodate something like 3000-5000 people but there were only a fraction of that there. During the first few hours of the show it looked like there might have been about 200 people there, if that. On the bright side, it made getting food and drinks easy. Plus they had over 40 porta-potties so it was almost like there was one for each of us.
The bands who played were Gene Loves Jezebel, Animotion, Dramarama, When in Rome, The Romantics and Flock of Seagulls. I’ll review them in order by how much I liked them from least to best:
6. Animotion – I should start off by mentioning that I was never a big fan. I always thought of them as a Human League ripoff. They made me laugh hysterically when they did in fact do a Human League cover. They made me cry when they tried a Depeche Mode one. I did listen to a few of their songs in the beginning of their set to give them a chance but I just don’t think they are that good.
5. When in Rome – I always loved “The Promise” but I knew nothing of their other work. There was a reason for this… they only made ONE album. Why they were on this show with the other more long term acts and why they weren’t put on first instead of fourth confused me. Was Howard Jones not available? What about Altered Images or Thomas Dolby? What was Wang Chung up to this weekend? I question their catalog but they were okay performance wise. They were pleasant and unspectacular but I still think of what might have been.
4. Gene Loves Jezebel – It’s always tough being on first and these guys had that distinction. I thought they played well and singer/leader Mike Aston had a nice presence up there. The songs were cool and really got me into the spirit of the show. I wished I could have seen them later in the day but why not start off the day with a great band?
3. Flock of Seagulls – While this was the band I most looked forward to I found their set good but not great. They received the headliner spot playing last and they didn’t disappoint. They put more recent tracks in the earlier part of their set but during the 2nd half of it they destroyed with their sparkling hits and timeless classics. I rate them 3rd for being a little bit uneven although I enjoyed them very much.
2. The Romantics – I wasn’t expecting that much from these guys. They were rockin up there and had great energy. Their songs were different from most of the new wave type of songs we’d heard most of the day and they gave us a very good effort. The vocalist is a little limited and that held them back a little but their catchy rock n roll songs really did the trick.
1- Dramarama – I wasn’t sure if these guys would be good but I was anticipating their performance more than any other band in the show out of sheer curiosity. The vocalists’ voice was something I worried about after watching and listening to some YouTube videos of recent live performances but he came out on fire and never quit. We commented as to how his voice came through like “CD quality” and he was coolest musician by far as he ran out to the crowd a few times during the end of the set. The first was to give us all high fives as he ran down the row and then right after the set he came right down and posed for pictures, hung out and made himself very accessible to the small crowd. Their songs sounded the most relevant in a modern sense and their live sound invoked memories of Soul Asylum and bands like that. Their lyrical content was all their own and really resonated with me. For that reason I liked them best.
Lastly I want to mention while the crowd was surely disappointing as it never reached more than 400-500 people at one time, the bands never made a comment about it. They never acted annoyed or upset about playing in front of 50 people or however many could find their way from the beer tent to the front of the stage. I mentioned that to my friends at the very beginning, that I hoped they wouldn’t bring it up. I really dislike when bands or artists bitch about the crowd. It’s so unprofessional and you are taking it out on the people who ARE there. The people who you are pissed at should be the ones who did not attend. The ones who are there may not be as large a number as you’d like but they paid to see you and they still deserve a good show. It was the first time I saw each of these bands and maybe it’s the last time too but one thing I can definitely say is that each one tried their best to give us a good show whether I was into them or not being irrelevant. I thank them for that.
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