This is not a canon episode of Radio Free Charleston. It doesn’t have the full end credits, or any animation, or even much in the way of mind-hurting weirdness.
And…it wasn’t shot in Charleston. The musicians are not from Charleston. This isn’t really “supporting the local scene.”
This is a PopCult Bootleg Video. It’s Radio Free Chicago.
About thirteen days ago (when this post goes live), your humble blogger and his lovely wife were in the midst of one of our periodic trips to Chicago. We’ve made several trips back there since we snuck off and got married on the stage at Steppenwolf Theater Company almost ten years ago. It’s our happy place.
We had planned to go back for our tenth anniversary, but our actual anniversary date is just days after the end of the Democratic National Convention. Hotel rates then are still through the roof, and to be honest, there wasn’t much going on in the Windy City, which will likely be in post-convention hangover mode.
Mel wanted to see a play, Little Bear Ridge Road (I get the title slightly wrong in the video above), but its run will be over by the time our anniversary rolls around. Then I discovered that Thomas Dolby and Tom Bailey (of Thompson Twins fame) were going to be performing at The House of Blues near the end of July.
The Thompson Twins are Mel’s favorite New Wave band. She even used to trade letters with Alannah Currie. She never got to see them perform live. Tom Bailey was actually set to perform in Chicago a day or two after we got married, but we didn’t find out until it was too late to make it to that show.
On top of that, I’ve been a fan of Thomas Dolby since he was in Bruce Wooly & The Camera Club, plus I’ve always enjoyed the Twins’ music, too. This would not be like going to see Steely Dan. It was a no-brainer to jump the gun and hop the Cardinal a month early.
This was a hit-and-run trip. We boarded the train Friday night in Charleston, arrived in Chicago Saturday morning, went to Replay in Lincoln Park to see the SpongeBob Bar Sunday afternoon, saw the play at Steppenwolf Sunday night, then Monday we went to the House of Blues and came home Tuesday/Wednesday.
Monday afternoon we walked from our hotel to The House of Blues after their boxoffice opened to pick up our tickets. Then we walked back to the hotel (stopping at a great little place called JoJo’s Shake Bar on Hubbard Street for lunch on the way), and relaxed until it was time to go to the show.
When we went back, we wisely upgraded our tickets to the VIP section so we didn’t have to stand for the entire show, and then we witnessed a wonderful night of music. It was the last night of their tour, and everybody was loose and having fun. Thomas Dolby, performing solo behind a bank of keyboards and Linn drums was a kick, performing not only his hits, but also weaving in fun snippets of Gary Numan’s “Cars” and The Cure’s “Love Song” into “One of Our Submarines.” He opened with a vocoder cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” which you will get a tiny bit of in this show.
Dolby was freaking amazing.
I was armed with my Kodak Zi8 and my cellphone, and while I wanted to enjoy the show as a civilian, I did shoot some video, including one full song by each artist, and you’ll see those above, along with a few fun little bits, like Dolby joining Bailey for a verse of a cover of The Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” I also got the complete life cycle of the giant balloon during “You Take Me Up.”
I have to say that, while I loved the show, I also loved that I got to see my own show of Mel enjoying the holy hell out of it. That makes me happy. You can maybe even hear Mel singing the high parts during “Hold Me Now” in the video above.
Bailey and his all-female backing bad, The Sisters of Mercy, were note-perfect in recreating the classic Thompson Twins sound.
So, with some cool video in hand, I figured I should share it with my readers. It’s not monetized, being posted to my private server, and if the folks involved want it taken down, or want the full HD version of the video for their own use, all they need to do is contact me through the comments. Host segments were shot on my cell in my backyard Friday afternoon, during a rare quiet moment in the neighborhood. Just grabbed the phone and ran out back. Probably should’ve caught my breath first.
One added bit of useless trivia, since I began doing RFC as a video show just over eighteen years ago, this is the first time I’ve ever had a show where I ran camera for every shot myself. I have finally overcome my distaste for folks who shoot video of concerts on their phones. I still feel little queasy about it, but if I’d refrained, you wouldn’t be reading this or watching the video above.
Now we just have to figure out what kind of adventure we’re going to go on for our anniversary.
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