I was pretty surprised and ecstatic to hear that Yaz (or Yazoo to those not in the U.S.) was doing a reunion show. Always awesome to get a second chance to see one of my favorite '80s bands that stopped touring before I started concertgoing. It's especially a treat to get to see Yaz live because they only toured briefly for their first album (not sure if they even made it to the U.S.), and broke up just before the second album came out.
I saw their July 10, 2008 show at the Orpheum Theatre, which is one of the few L.A. venues I'd never been to before. The layout is reminiscent of some of the other old theaters in L.A., but the (interior) architecture and surface decoration are strikingly beautiful (there's a photo gallery on the Orpheum website if you'd like to take a look). The only thing that's not so great is the comfort of the seats. The rows are amazingly packed in, and while the cupholders that have been bodged onto the backs of each row of seats are somewhat nice to have, there really isn't room for them. It would be simply impossible to get to a midrow seat without everyone standing up and getting well back to let you pass. Also my cupholder was right where I would have naturally put my left knee while sitting, so I had to put my legs in a somewhat awkward position. I also found the seat back angle to be too far forward and the general seat comfort to be below average. Of course most of the show I spent standing, so no biggie.
One nice thing I can say about the venue, at least for this show, was that security was low-key. No searching and confiscating of pocket knives at the door, and no large groups of obtrusive bouncers in front of the stage. The openly holstered gun of the security guard in the parking lot was something I hadn't seen before, though. (The area the theater is in is not so nice — lots of abandoned buildings and decay.) Anyhow, enough about my new venue experience — suffice it to say that overall I quite liked the place and would definitely see more shows there.
I read online that the Tuesday show had an opening band, but this Thursday show just had a D.J. Most of the music he played was enjoyable, but he was an annoying character to watch with his exaggerated gyrations and "look how I'm using my sweet gear!" moves.
After the unknown D.J. left the stage, a more notable D.J. took it — good old Richard Blade of KROQ fame. He even gave a little love to KROQ with his signature pronunciation of the callsign, even though he's now with Sirius satellite radio. He mentioned that the show was being recorded and that it'd be played on Sirius in a week (IIRC). He related a story about how Alison Moyet had called up Vince Clarke earlier this year to suggest doing a reunion show, but Vince said no way. He reportedly went back and listened to the old albums again, however, and then decided he was onboard. Richard went on to say that he had been really excited about The Police doing their recent reunion tour but that he was much more excited to get to see Yaz.
The show itself was very good. The music sounded great — it mostly sounded like the original album versions, with a little tasteful updating and remixing (though it seemed like there were a couple of somewhat creaky key transpositions). As usual, Vince didn't play a whole lot live — mostly some slow pads. He did do a fair amount of backing vocals, all vocoded since he's not a big fan of his singing voice. Alison's voice sounded very good, although there may have been a slight bit of muddiness to the mix on it, and it was impossible to make out most of her quiet, heavily accented mutterings between songs.
Other than some cute dancing from Alison during one or two songs, the performers were pretty static up there, but luckily there was lots of cool eye candy to be had in the light / video show. There were see-through grid screens behind each performer displaying artfully low-res graphics (including, on "Bad Connection", IIRC, a tribute to '80s videogame graphics) and video (including old Yaz video clips, and on "State Farm", an off-kilter but pleasing montage of "happy perfect '50s people", the guy from Reefer Madness who cackles maniacally to himself in the chair, and a few other marijuana references) in vivid primary colors. Behind the grid screens were light poles that alternated between solid-color glows and animated multicolor patterns.
Not much more to say. This was not a "you should curse yourself if you missed this show" show, but it was definitely a real treat to get to enjoy Yaz live.
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Dan Harkless
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