Mark Ferguson, the owner of Ferg’s Sports Bar, estimates that something like 1,500 people attended the Oct. 17 show by Pearcy/DeMartini, from the ‘80s band Ratt, at his outdoor Entertainment Complex. The capacity at St. Petersburg’s newest concert venue is 2,000.
That’s good news, particularly since that was only the second show in Ferg’s busy nostalgia-fueled musical season (Head East was first, on Oct. 10).
A Flock of Seagulls will take the stage Thursday, with Puddle of Mudd following Friday.
Anyone who was around in the early days of MTV, circa 1982, will remember the ubiquitous video for A Flock of Seagulls’ sole American hit, “I Ran (So Far Away).” Synth-heavy, atmospheric and exotic – lots of dry ice smoke, and bright lights reflecting off tall blobs of aluminum foil – it was the very definition of “new wave,” a quirky, catchy dance song performed by unsmiling young men with freaky hairstyles.
Lead singer Mike Score – the guy with the yellow hair teased up into bulls’ horns – remains from the original incarnation of A Flock of Seagulls (he’s 100 percent bald now, if you care).
“I Ran” was a Top Five hit in the U.S., although the Liverpool outfit had reasonably large singles in Britain including “Wishing (I Had a Photograph of You),” “The More You Live, the More You Love” and “Space Age Love Song.”
Thursday’s opening set is from “DJ/VJ Ant ‘80s Music Video Experience.”
Lead singer Wes Scantlin is the sole original member of Puddle of Mudd, the midwestern rock band whose second album, 2001’s Come Clean, sold in excess of three million copies. POM was an alt-rock radio mainstay for much of that decade, with “Blurry,” “Drift & Die,” “She Hates Me,” “Away From Me” and more lodging in the upper reaches of the airplay charts.
Side note: Miles Schon, the current POM lead guitarist, is the son of Journey guitar hero Neal Schon.
Coming to Ferg’s Oct. 28 is Lene Lovich, who was one of the flagship artists on Great Britain’s Stiff Records, known for breaking “new wave” artists in the late 1970s (others were Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric, Nick Lowe, Rachel Sweet and Ian Dury & the Blockheads).
Quirky, angsty (but still danceable) pop music was the U.K.’s response to angry, sometimes tone-deaf punk and the dinosaur rock prevalent in America at the time. “New wave” was a marketing slogan, to be sure, hopelessly cheesy but useful when attempting to differentiate such music-making from punk, pop, rock or (shiver) disco.
Of course, it never got played on U.S. radio, but the albums found a Stateside audience.
A prevalent earworm, circa 1979, was Lovich’s “Lucky Number,” freakish and bizarre to the extreme, but hopelessly catchy.
She’s in the middle of a minor career resurgence, as the opening act on the current cross-country trek by (strictly American) wavey pioneers Devo and the B-52’s.
It’s her first full trek around the country in 35 years. Although Devo and the B’s will be elsewhere on the 28th, Lovich and her band will perform on the Ferg’s Entertainment Complex stage at 8 p.m.
Upcoming Ferg’s concerts: Nov. 14: Kings X; Nov. 19: Black Flag, the Queers; Dec. 8: Wang Chung; Jan. 23: Great White, Slaughter.
All tickets (and additional details) are at this link.