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Howard Jones seems to get a bad rap. As ‘80s bands go, people always snicker when I tell them he was one of my favorites.
Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong people.
Playing before the Barenaked Ladies and OMD, Jones got the 6 p.m. spot at the BMO Harris Pavilion Saturday night, and while that’s not exactly top billing for an artist who had 15 top 40 singles during his career, I’ll take it.
Despite his Old Country Buffet start time, I was looking forward to seeing Jones again, since I watched him play a beautiful acoustic show at Shank Hall in 2007. If this was to be an "oldies" act, then I was prepared. I guess that makes me old, and I’m OK with that.
However, with most of the reserved seats empty, it was also the smallest Summerfest crowd I've ever seen at the BMO.
Jones’ festival set list was pretty short (43 minutes) as he didn’t get much time to play. But his seven-song performance – eight, if you count the techno reprise of "Things Can Only Get Better" – was tight as can be for this 61-year-old British master of synth.
Clad in a white suit with fun-guy '80s shirt, Jones, his electronic drummer and DJ looked the part. Think keytars don't exist anymore? Guess again.
"It's great to be at the Summerfest," Jones told us unironically. He also told us that not living your life in one day is horrible advice. One more piece of advice: listen to the words in "New Song," because that's HoJo's "manifesto." Noted.
Look, Jones made music that had its time and place, just like Live Aid in 1985 (which I remember watching on my grandparents’ old TV that looked like a piece of furniture). To me, those days are gone but not forgotten.
I still love "What Is Love?" and "Everlasting Love." I could take or leave "Life In One Day." But hey, HoJo is still going.
Give him credit for still creating new music; his "Engage" performance-based series is coming soon. But tonight, he only had time for the hits. No, "New Song" wasn’t new. His techno reprise of "Things Can Only Get Better" was pretty cool.
Even though plenty were here for the performances after, a warm, older, small crowd seemed to appreciate that, too.
Set list:
"Pearl in the Shell"
"Like to Get to Know You Well"
"Everlasting Love
Life in One Day"
"What Is Love?"
"New Song"
"Things Can Only Get Better"
"Things Can Only Get Better" (techno reprise)
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
