
(WILD! tour photo scanned from
Erasure's TINY TOUR book)
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NEWSDAY'S REVIEW
(excerpt) OF THE FEB. 15th 1990
WILD! GIG AT THE NASSAU
COLISEUM IN NEW YORK:
Midway through Erasure's
third song at the Nassau Coliseum, singer Andy Bell took off
his jacket, stripping down to just the basics: gold-sequined
woman's bathing suit, platform sneakers and big white athletic
socks. To the screams of 18,000 men, women, and adolescents,
he began to twirl across the stage -shaved head and all- like
a ballerina. Then just as suddenly, while his partner Vince Clarke
programed the drum machines and and synthesizers into an upbeat,
high-energy disco pulse, Bell immersed himself again in Erasure's
very languid, almost morose lyrics of love and pain.
...Erasure put on a
sublime spectacle. Backup singers dressed as "Star Trek"
handmaidens and male dancers flashing their nipples joined Bell
and Clarke in a stage decorated as a primadoral bower where outsized
flowers looked and moved suspiciously like even more outsized
male organs, Bell & Clarke sketched out pristine, melancholy
synthesizer pop.
The show was also a
private code made public - and to a much larger audience than
anyone who hasn't been paying attention would have thought possible.
Though Erasure receives very little commercial radio play, the
Coliseum was nearly sold out, and tickets to the (February 16)
show at Madison Square Garden sold out in a few hours. The performance
was gay entertainment for the masses. The more flamboyant Bell
was, the more the crowd loved it. He was, for an audience that
prided itself on its alternative taste in music, a superhero
of sexual liberation. He was Mick Jagger in petticoats and a
red tiara.
And even if Bell wasn't
connecting on all circuits, he gave the audience what any crowd
of furious dancers wants: an atmosphere of relaxed sexual taboos,
an almost religious faith in real love, an asylum where real
love seems possible, and a good beat. Boys and girls mouthed
his lyrics lovingly to their dates, and identified with Bell's
plea to his parents to accept him as he was. And why not? Easily
reduced to generalities, Erasure's themes all fit neatly within
the standard canon of arena rock.
But Bell's language
lost something along the way. Once it reaches arena scale, pop
speaks above all the language of pop; subtilties of language
and address fade, and people hear the homilies they are accustomed
to hearing. The spectacle loses its meaning as anything but a
spectacle; on a big scale, the audience determines the music's
message, not the performers...
-John LeLand
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1989 - WILD! TOUR
July 18 & 19 - Prince's Trust
gig, Birmingham UK (Andy with Level 42)
November 3 - Liseburgshall, Gothenburg
SWEDEN
November 4 -Eriksdallshallen, Stockholm SWEDEN
November 6 - Valbyhallen, Copenhagen DENMARK
November 9 - Munsterlandhalle, Munster GERMANY
November 10 - Hanomag, Hanover GERMANY
November 12 - Sportshall, Prague CZECHOSLOVAKIA
November 13 - Inselzt, Vienna AUSTRIA
November 15 - Festhalle, Luzerne SWITZERLAND
November 16 - Circus Krone, Munich GERMANY
November 18 - Osteehalle, Kiel GERMANY
November 19 - Sportshalle Alterdorf, Hamburg GERMANY
November 20 - Eissportshalle, Berlin GERMANY
November 22 - Philipshalle, Dusseldorf GERMANY
November 27 - Stradthalle, Offenbach, GERMANY
November 28 - Mozartsaal, Mannheim GERMANY
November 29 - Liedehalle, Stuttgart GERMANY
December 2 - SE&CC, Glasgow Scotland UK
December 3 - SE&CC, Glasgow Scotland UK
December 4 - Kings Hall, Belfast N. Ireland UK
December 5 - The Point, Dublin IRELAND
December 7 - International Centre, Bournemouth UK
December 8 - Brighton Centre, Brighton UK
December 10 - London Arena, London UK
December 11 - London Arena, London UK
December 12 - International Centre, Bournemouth UK
December 14 - G-Mex, Manchester UK
December 15 - G-Mex, Manchester UK
December 16 - Ice Rink, Whitley Bay UK
December 17 - Pavillion, Shepton Mallet UK
December 20 - NEC, Birmingham UK
December 21 - NEC, Birmingham UK
December 22 - NEC, Birmingham UK
December 23 - NEC, Birmingham UK
(Wild! tour continues in 1990)
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Various setlists for 1989 include:
Piano Song - You Surround Me - Chains of Love - Star - Crown
Of Thorns - Supernature -Who Needs Love (Like That) - Stop! -
Victim Of Love - La Gloria - Blue Savannah - Sometimes - The
Hardest Part - Drama! - A Little Respect
Backing singers for Wild tour were:
Valerie Chalmers & Emma (Chalmers) Whittle
Merchandise sold on tour included:
program books, tee shirts, enamel pins, posters, baseball caps
The support band for the 1989 UK gigs
on the Wild tour was: Ocean
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