Buggles: Reunited – 25th October 2011 – A Review

They say that the candle that burns twice as bright only burns half as long. And so, that phrase sprang to mind as I sauntered out of the O2 Arena last Tuesday night. I had just been privileged to witness a short, but incredibly important performance by a number of musical heroes of mine. One in particular, Mr Trevor Horn.

When, at aged 9, in September of 1979, I first heard Video Killed the Radio Star, I was blissfully unaware of who Trevor Horn was. As were most people outside of the Tina Charles band and the Horn family itself. Trevor had yet to stamp his mark on the musical world. A mark that lingers to this day. A mark that has, in this correspondents very humble opinion, never been bettered. As with most people at the time, VKTRS was viewed somewhat as a novelty song. It flew in the face of the death throes of punk and the great coated shoegazing of new wave. It was chirpy yet melancholy, bright and glistening and had a vocal that sounded as if it was coming from your mother’s old Hunter radio. It was an immediate hit. The curse of many a great band. An instant number one and, as Adam Ant once said in his track, “Here Comes The Grump“, “When you have a number one/The only way is down”. An album followed, “The Age of Plastic”, and then Geoff Downes and Trevor were invited to join one of the largest rock bands in the world, Yes. And you don’t say no to Yes 😉

However, Yes fans said no to Trevor who, even though he was a massive Yes fan and knew the task in hand, was viewed as a poor replacement for Jon Anderson. The fans didn’t like it one bit, and the stress became too much. After recording one album, 1980’s “Drama”, and touring the globe, finishing with 3 nights at Madison Square Garden, Downes & Horn parted company from Messers White, Squire & Howe but would remain in touch, seeing Trevor return to the fold in 1984 to produce their biggest ever album, “90125”.

After the Yes adventure, Trevor went on to make a second Buggles album, the exquisite and heavily prog influenced “Adventures in Modern Recording” and some might say this was the watershed moment. The album didn’t do well commercially and only reappeared a year ago with an expansive re-release on ZTT Records. From here on in, Trevor would become one of the world’s most influential producers, teaming up with Malcolm McClaren to make the masterpiece “Duck Rock”, discovering the true power of the Fairlight CMI, producing such pop classic’s as ABC’s “The Lexicon of Love”, going Fairlight crazy on “90125” and then using the output from that to form Art of Noise, the ZTT label along with Paul Morley and wife Jill Sinclair and going on to dominate the alt-pop world with creations like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Propaganda, amongst others.

But that’s where I’ll leave the Horn retrospective for now. I could go on, trust me!

But there was just a taster of what this man has achieved and what a massive influence on me his work has been. For many years, I found myself liking music and not realising that the common DNA shared by them all was a Trevor Horn production. Once I found this out, it was an epiphany of some magnitude and I soon began to study his work, trying to identify what it is that he does to make stuff sound so good without smothering it in his own “branding”. Some producers can be spotted a mile off. For example, and with all due respect, Roy Thomas Baker has a signature style that can be heard throughout his work with bands like Queen, The Cars and The Darkness. So much so that The Darkness sound incredibly like Queen. I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s an obvious style. Trevor is far more subtle. He lets the artist shine through. He makes the song more noticeable than the production. Which, of course, is exactly how it should be.

So, when I had to miss out on Buggles first ever proper gig last year, at the Supper Club, I thought I had missed my time. I really did think that I’d never get another chance. Until a few weeks ago when, after returning from a weekend seeing Heaven 17 & B.E.F., I saw a link on the official Trevor Horn Facebook page, announcing a one off gig at the British Music Experience museum, located within the O2 Arena in London.

I hoped upon hope that the tickets would not be so highly priced as the Supper Club ones and was ecstatic to discover that they were only £17!

So, last Tuesday afternoon, I took a leisurely drive down to Newbury Park, on the outskirts of East London, stopping at Digital Village in Romford on the way to pick up my new Alesis IO Dock (More of that in another post) before parking the car and jumping on a Tube to North Greenwich. I have to say that now the upgrade work on the Jubilee Line has finished, it’s such a breeze to get to the O2. When I went there to see Depeche Mode, it was utter chaos using the bus replacement service.

The BME is contained within a structure inside the umbrella like dome, called the O2 Bubble. After scything my way through a sea of pink rinses, Elisabeth Arden and twin sets (Cliff Richard was playing the main arena that night!), I found myself at the foot of a two tier escalator that whisked me up to the BME museum shop. A cursory glance revealed mainly tacky rubbish designed for tourists, except for a decent selection of books at ridiculous prices and so I carried on through to the museum itself. Once inside the dimly lit room, you see that it is laid out in a circular fashion, with rooms shooting off a central axis, each of which covered a particular era of British pop music. In each room, based on the era, there were objects, memorabilia and a giant interactive video wall. There was some interesting stuff in there, but you never get over how small it actually is. However, I did spy an old Emulator II+ in the section covering the late 80’s/early 90’s.

These spoke-like rooms occupy about two thirds of the circumference of the museum, with the final third being occupied by a performance space, and this was where the gig was to take place. Not long after 7:30pm, we were allowed in and there was no massive rush for the stage, probably because most of us there were 40+! I managed to secure my position at the very front of the stage and just to the left of where Trevor would be standing, conveniently placed in front of a small speaker at the edge of the stage that gave me a point on which to lean. The room filled up quite quickly, mainly with people wearing guests passes on lanyards and I heard someone saying that these gigs are normally guest only, but if they are short on numbers, they bulk out by selling tickets to plebeians like myself! Whether this is true, I don’t know, nor do I care.

After a good 20 minutes or so, the manager of the BME took to the stage and welcomed everyone before announcing Geoff & Trevor on to the stage to partake in a short Q&A session. The three gents sat perched on bar stools and both Geoff & Trevor answered the somewhat poorly researched questions by the BMA manager with good humour and a little casual swearing! It was good fun and the floor was opened up for questions from the audience. Most of these were preceded by vary degrees of sycophancy but were interesting nonetheless 🙂

Geoff & Trevor

Then, after these were done, the guys left the stage and returned about 15 minutes later, having been formally introduced by Harvey Goldsmith, the promoter and owner of the BME, wearing shiny silver jackets. The rest of the band contained the original Buggles drummer, Paul Robinson, as well as frequent Horn collaborators Lol Creme (formerly of 10CC) and Stephen Lipson, both on guitar. The band was completed by an extra keyboard player and three lovely ladies on backing vocals.

They gentle tones of “I Am a Camera” (from the second Buggles album) rang out, with Trevor singing it’s refrain, but this was merely a gentle intro to the show as after a bout a minute or so, the air attack warning siren sounded and the band burst into a note prefect rendition of the Frankie classic, “Two Tribes”. This instrumental version only served to reinforce what a cracking piece of music it was and to hear it played so brilliantly well by live musicians, especially Trevor playing the thumping bass line so brilliantly on his 5 string bass and Stephen Lipson effortlessly shredding the underpinning guitar part. This was a massive surprise to hear and one that, for me, was incredibly welcome. The smile on my face must’ve lit up the stage!

Next up, we were treated to the obligatory Buggles numbers, “VKTRS” and “Living in The Plastic Age” which were every bit as good as they had been at Trevor’s 25th anniversary concert in 2004 at Wembley Arena. To be so close to the great man belting out these tunes was a bit of a dream come true, I have to say 🙂

Alison Moyet

The next track was an unbridled joy too. Trevor welcomed the stunning Alison Moyet on to the stage, a woman whose voice had been so monumental with Yazoo and her own solo career that followed and a woman half the size of the one we all used to know. She looked and sounded stunning, taking Grace Jones’ signature track, “Slave To The Rhythm”, and making it her own. To hear this played live is quite an experience, especially if you know the history of how the song was created in the studio by the two gentlemen on stage, Mr Horn & Mr Lipson. Paul Robinson’s drumming was as close to the looped original as you’re ever likely to get and the track slunk along with effortless grace (no pun intended). It was a shame it had to end. And with that, Alison was gone. Another Buggles favourite followed, the tragic tale of “not-quite-stardom” that is “Elstree”.

Then it was time for Lol Creme to shine as the band launched into (once Lol had negotiated changing his in ear monitors and guitar, along with a bit of hilarious banter with Trevor) the 10CC classic, “Rubber Bullets”. Lol’s vocal sounding every bit as fresh as the original did in 1973, with Trevor providing backing vocals. More banter after this with Lol & Trevor (who also play in The Producers together) before another surprise song, a cover of Bowie’s Space Oddity, complete with a vocoded lead vocal by Trevor. It was a great version, done in a Buggles stylee and wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the Age of Plastic album.

Trevor Horn & Paul Robinson

We were then treated to one of my favourite tracks from that first Buggles album, “Johnny On The Monorail” and then, with tongues planted firmly in cheeks, they covered the Will.I.Am/Nicki Minaj track, “Check It Out“, which had heavily sampled “VKTRS” and made Trev a bunch of cash, a fact he wasn’t shy about sharing! 😉

And that was it! Nine songs and they bade us farewell to a rousing reception.

Harvey came back on stage to urge us all to come back soon and let slip that there might be something to look forward to in a live sense in 2012. Who knows quite what he meant, but I’m certainly excited!

I hung around a bit after the show, hoping that I might get to meet Trevor, Stephen, Paul, Geoff or Lol but nothing materialised. However, photo’s from other attendees seem to show that I should’ve waited a bit longer 🙁

And so, that was it. Into the night I went, with a sense of absolute fulfilment. Sure, it had only been nine songs but what a set of songs! I’d have happily paid twice what I did for the same experience. If you think that is a bit much, I’d equate the whole experience to a literary buff going to see Shakespeare reading one of his sonnets in person. They’d pay handsomely for that experience, and Trevor has had an equal impact on my life musically, so I was more than satisfied with the show. To paraphrase what I said at the top of this piece, the band that plays twice as bright, plays half as long 😉