1990 10 Electronic Vox

ELECTRONICALLY TESTED

FRONTSTAGE / BACKSTAGE REPORTS FROM CLUBS AND CONCERTS AROUND THE WORLD. THIS MONTH: LOS ANGELES. WHERE ELECTRONIC PLAY THEIR FIRST-EVER GIG — WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THE PET SHOP BOYS. IS THIS THE RETURN - ARRGH! - OF THE 'SUPERGROUP' ?
REPORT: DANNY KELLY. PICTURES: KEVIN CUMMINS

SITUATED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN HOLLYWOOD AND DISNEY World (and related to both!), the Dodgers Stadium - Los Angeles’ shrine to baseball - is literally fantastic. Part spaceship, part cathedral, its 60,000 scats are housed in brilliantly floodlit stands that tower endlessly into tile evening sky.

Tonight those seats arc packed with an excited, predominantly female throng awaiting the arrival of Depeche Mode, the biggest British band, bar none, in these parts just now.

But before that they'll see something that'll one day seem rather more important: the live debut of Electronic...

Brainchild and plaything of New Order’s Barney Sumner and genius about town Johnny Marr, Electronic have a lot to prove. While 'Getting Away With It’, their provocatively titled debut, was one of the very best pop 45s of the past year (and very nearly 1989's Xmas Number One), nagging doubts have clung. Is Electronic just a rich men's whimsy, and does the occasional involvement of the Pet Shop Boys - they’ll be appearing here too - herald the return of that much-despised 70s institution, the supergroup? For Electronic there's a touch of put-up-or-shut-up about tonight...

AT THIS STADIUM, BASEBALL IS KING, AND THE DODGERS - WHO this year celebrate their centenary - have no intention of letting rock ‘n rollers enter the hallowed sanctum of their dressing rooms. Hence the hands have each been given their own tented paddocks outside the stadium. In and around one of these, the tension is starting to billow.

Electronic, you see, took this gig at very short notice (after the LA authorities took a dislike to the name of Depeche Mode's original support choice, the hapless Jesus And Mary Chain) and they’re not really ready to roll. For some songs Barney hasn’t yet written lyrics; on others, he's struggling to remember those he has wrote.

Beyond these collective collywobbles, the individual Electronic components have their own reasons to be fearful. For Barney, it’s the first trip onstage since last year’s mammoth New Order US jaunt left him ill and vowing ‘never again’. For Marr it’s his first post-Smiths appearance as a creative focus rather than a ludicrously overqualified accompanist. For the stage-shy Pet Shop Boys it’s their first ever gig beyond Derek Jarman’s safety blanket. And when was the last time any of these was a support act?

Each is dealing with the countdown in their own way:

Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant is being vulnerable: “At the soundcheck everything sounded great. Except me. I always sound dreadful... Perhaps that’s why we do so little live work...”

Barney has developed his own tension-easing formula: “No, I’m not nervous,” he smiles. “I’m too pissed to be nervous...”

Johnny Marr takes an opposite approach. During The Smiths ’86 American tour, he sucked the bottle dry. Now, waiting to go on, the only thing that passes his lips are the cigarettes he chain-smokes. The change is, he says, “just a muso thing, just wanting to be in control of what I’m doing.” 

And now’s the time for that control to pay off. An overgrown golf buggy - transport to the stage - signals that Electronic’s big moment has arrived.

The few shouts of Jaaaany...Jaaaany’ that greet their arrival (this is, after all, Depeche Mode’s crowd) soon fade to stunned silence as Jaaaany, swathed in regulation Manchester sloppies, spends the whole first number, ‘Big House’, stabbing at a keyboard, his guitar hanging limp behind him. This, and the song’s dancey sway, are a final kiss-off to those who refuse to see him as anything other than an ex-Smith.

Electronic make an understandably watchful start. But, as ‘Big House' gives way to ‘Try All You Want’, ‘Sun’ and ‘Get The Message’, confidence resurfaces. The music, far from the “Italian disco” with which I’d been threatened before the show, is percussive, feet-aimed and electro-repetitive, yet still melodic.

‘Get The Message’ verges on the brilliant; what follows, when the Pet Shop Boys appear, bounds across that verge. It is a time for eye-rubbing; is that really an amalgam of the '80s most successful and influential rock, pop and dance groups (The Smiths, PSB and New Order respectively) up there?

Tennant and Chris Lowe bring a dramatic, almost cinematic flourish to Electronic's muscular relentlessness. ‘Patience Of A Saint’ and 'Getting Away With It', a hit in the States, finally grip the locals. The Pet Shop Boys, in the best showbiz tradition, leave ‘em howling for more.

And leave Electronic to finish with the rivetting rush of ‘Gangster’ and ' Donald'. By now, Barney - all Armani shorts and, erm, idiosyncratic dancing - is away loving it, past horrors forgotten. Johnny Marr smiles beneficently at his mate while the music they’ve forged reaches its giddy climax, almost mechanical, but beautifully so. As they depart the stage, an intoxicating thought occurs: Electronic will get better and better. They are already frighteningly good.

Back in the paddock and under canvas, its jolly up time with wives, friends, mates and celebs. But for the band, though, the prevailing feeling is one of quiet relief rather than raucous triumph. They’re pleased, but glad to have it behind them. All around them others are less restrained.

Johnny Marr’s wife Angie clings to him, beaming like the fan she is, while Electronic’s manager, Marcus Russell heaves a sigh and unknits his brow for the first time in days.

A host of passing partyers - among them The Cult’s Billy Duffy, Happy Mondays Gaz and Bez and that Mick out of Simply Red - add apparently heartfelt congratulations into the mix. Bottle tops fly; it’s post-gig business as usual.

And amid the festivities all concerned with Electronic - the working reality rather than the idea - know there’s loads more to be done. But at least now they’ve shown that they mean business...