Mark Ferguson, the owner of Ferg\u2019s Sports Bar, estimates that something like 1,500 people attended the Oct. 17 show by Pearcy\/DeMartini, from the \u201880s band Ratt, at his outdoor Entertainment Complex. The capacity at St. Petersburg\u2019s newest concert venue is 2,000.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s good news, particularly since that was only the second show in Ferg\u2019s busy nostalgia-fueled musical season (Head East was first, on Oct. 10).<\/p>\n
A Flock of Seagulls will take the stage Thursday, with Puddle of Mudd following Friday.<\/p>\n
Anyone who was around in the early days of MTV, circa 1982, will remember the ubiquitous video for A Flock of Seagulls\u2019 sole American hit, \u201cI Ran (So Far Away).\u201d Synth-heavy, atmospheric and exotic \u2013 lots of dry ice smoke, and bright lights reflecting off tall blobs of aluminum foil \u2013 it was the very definition of \u201cnew wave,\u201d a quirky, catchy dance song performed by unsmiling young men with freaky hairstyles.<\/p>\n
Lead singer Mike Score \u2013 the guy with the yellow hair teased up into bulls\u2019 horns \u2013 remains from the original incarnation of A Flock of Seagulls (he\u2019s 100 percent bald now, if you care).<\/p>\n
\u201cI Ran\u201d was a Top Five hit in the U.S., although the Liverpool outfit had reasonably large singles in Britain including \u201cWishing (I Had a Photograph of You),\u201d \u201cThe More You Live, the More You Love\u201d and \u201cSpace Age Love Song.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s opening set is from \u201cDJ\/VJ Ant \u201880s Music Video Experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lead singer Wes Scantlin is the sole original member of Puddle of Mudd, the midwestern rock band whose second album, 2001\u2019s Come Clean, sold in excess of three million copies. POM was an alt-rock radio mainstay for much of that decade, with \u201cBlurry,\u201d \u201cDrift & Die,\u201d \u201cShe Hates Me,\u201d \u201cAway From Me\u201d and more lodging in the upper reaches of the airplay charts.<\/p>\n
Side note: Miles Schon, the current POM lead guitarist, is the son of Journey guitar hero Neal Schon.<\/p>\n
Coming to Ferg\u2019s Oct. 28 is Lene Lovich, who was one of the flagship artists on Great Britain\u2019s Stiff Records, known for breaking \u201cnew wave\u201d artists in the late 1970s (others were Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric, Nick Lowe, Rachel Sweet and Ian Dury & the Blockheads).<\/p>\n
Quirky, angsty (but still danceable) pop music was the U.K.\u2019s response to angry, sometimes tone-deaf punk and the dinosaur rock prevalent in America at the time. \u201cNew wave\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Of course, it never got played on U.S. radio, but the albums found a Stateside audience.<\/p>\n
A prevalent earworm, circa 1979, was Lovich\u2019s \u201cLucky Number,\u201d freakish and bizarre to the extreme, but hopelessly catchy.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s 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\u2019s.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s her first full trek around the country in 35 years. Although Devo and the B\u2019s will be elsewhere on the 28th, Lovich and her band will perform on the Ferg\u2019s Entertainment Complex stage at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n
Upcoming Ferg\u2019s concerts: Nov. 14: Kings X; Nov. 19: Black Flag, the Queers; Dec. 8: Wang Chung; Jan. 23: Great White, Slaughter.<\/p>\n