Photo Credit: Benjamin Wick
Even if songwriter Vince Clarke had never formed Erasure, he’d still have left an indelible impression on the budding sound of synth-pop, having been a founding member of Depeche Mode, penning genre classics including “New Life” and “Just Can’t Get Enough” during his short tenure with the group, and one half of Yazoo (known simply as Yaz in the U.S.), the duo responsible for ’80s club favorites such as “Sweet Thing” and “Situation.” But when Clarke teamed up with singer Andy Bell, the only interested party to respond to his want ad in Melody Maker, it turned out to be the longest-lasting and most productive relationship of his already accomplished musical career. Nearly 30 years later, the pair is still going strong, releasing their 16th studio album, The Violet Flame, in September.
What’s almost as noteworthy is that their fanbase has maintained itself, too, as evidenced by tonight’s impressively well-attended show at the Pabst Theater, even if demographically they’re now starting to skew more middle aged. In any case, there was an enthusiastic cheer as the two took the sparsely filled-out stage, Bell stepping up to the microphone sporting a glittering top hat and tails and Clarke, by contrast, taking his place lurking behind the synthesizers in a comparatively workaday gray suit. Even with a couple of sequined backup singers/dancers, there was still little to look at besides Clarke’s compact electronics setup, but as soon as they launched into the opener, their third single “Oh L’amour,” it became apparent that Bell’s beamingly positive stage presence takes up a lot of space all on its own.
Though he occasionally emerged to play some scratchy guitar, Clarke never said a word, leaving the banter to the affable Bell, who chatted up the crowd between entries in a set that balanced hits from their deep back catalogue, including a smattering of tracks from their stacked 1988 LP The Innocents, with engaging The Violet Flame material like “Reason” and “Sacred,” which deftly split the difference between the now-retro styles they helped pioneer and more modern dance-oriented aesthetics. Whenever a song happened to be from however, the audience greeted it eagerly, and by the end of their roughly 90-minute set, Erasure had many of them shaking it, if a little stiffly, in the aisles. Their ’80s heyday may have come and gone, but it’s good to have the duo still doing their thing.
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