I knew this was gonna be a long day. Today I was attending the Cruel World Music Festival in Pasadena, CA. This is a two day event (same bands both days so you only had to go one day to see it all.) Sunday was my day fortunately, since Saturday the temps were in the mid 90’s. Sunday we lucked out with mid 80’s temps. 80’s being the appropriate temperature for a bunch of bands that were famous in the 1980’s.
I went to see Missing Persons, Violent Femmes, Bauhaus, and The Psychedelic Furs. I saw all of these along with Black Marble, English Beat (which were brilliant!), The Damned, Blaqk Audio, and Morrisey.
If none of these bands ring a bell for you, you may want to stop reading now…or maybe check out a few of the videos and see if you recognize the music?
The biggest surprise for me was English Beat. They only played 4 songs but I got completely overwhelmed by the music, their talent and the energy of the crowd when they played Tenderness.
I’m on a Facebook group for the Cruel World Music Festival for several weeks and it’s been full of thousands of people around my age deciding what goth outfit to wear, or what band t-shirt from the 80’s they were going to wear and whether or not to wear sensible shoes of Doc’s. It’s been a really fun way to anticipate the concert with 1000’s of other like musically-minded people.
Missing Persons was terrific. I managed to wiggle my way to the front of the stage to see them. The bass player is the bass player from The Knack (My Sharona.) They rocked it!
Most of the bands I came to see, with a few exceptions, had 2 or 3 songs that I knew and loved. They were the sound track of my jr. high and high school experience.
I was chatting with a couple of women and I ask one, “what’s that fenced off area over there?” She said, “ I don’t know, I’ll go ask.” She did and found out that it was the Clubhouse section (I was VIP which is one step below Clubhouse) and then she said the guard would let us in if we wanted. So I headed into the Clubhouse section right to the front of the stage and enjoyed a great show by the Violent Femmes.
Bonus points to you if you noticed in the video or picture above that the drummer is playing a Webber BBQ as part of his kit. Brilliant.
I had tickets for the Violent Femmes show several months ago in Sacramento but gave them away since my sister and my mom took me to see the Eagles on the same night VF were playing. Worth giving up the tickets because seeing the Eagles with my mom was the best experience ever.
I was glowing from finally getting to see the Femmes AND I was in the Clubhouse section in the very front of the stage. I wanted to run over and see Devo on the main stage but The Psychedelic Furs we’re playing in 1/2 an hour and I had a front row spot! I decided to stay put.
And I’m so glad I did.
They sounded great.
The t-shirt line was crazy long all day long. There was finally a bit of a shorter line after the Furs played so I grabbed a couple of shirts, one Bauhaus and one Cruel World Festival shirt.
Everyone raved online about Bauhaus’s performance. While they did give a powerful show I still really only know one of there songs. It was well done!
This was on regular rotation at the new wave clubs back when I was in High School. It was neat to get to experience it live.
Morrisey came on at 9:50pm and I reluctantly stayed to watch a few songs. I am a huge Smiths fan but never really enjoyed his solo works. And his politics are…questionable… Still he was in fine voice and quite a showman. I departed after a couple of songs. From his Saturday setlist he didn’t play any songs from the Smiths until 10-12 songs in so I left after 2 songs. Unfortunately he played How Soon is Now when I made it to the parking lot! I got to hear some of it from there. Wish I’d stayed for one more song!
I am so grateful I got to experience some really stellar performances of bands I’ve never seen before. I’m also grateful for the kindness and friendliness of the people around me and online. We had a real sense of fellowship with the music being our common bond.
The flight home was uneventful and the dog went nuts when I walked in the door. She’s sitting crushed up against me as I write this. And all is right with the world.
Art’s Travel Adventures 