The Psychedelic Furs and Robyn Hitchcock at First Avenue, Minneapolis (06 Apr 2017)

English rock group The Psychedelic Furs headlined First Avenue’s mainroom last Thursday, April 6th.
The terrific turnout consisted of mostly an older audience, who may remember the band from John Hughes’ film Pretty in Pink (1986)… and may have seen the band multiple times.



DJ Jake Rudh played music videos of UK bands from the 70s and 80s era to keep the crowd entertained. It’s typical Transmission (his dance club and radio show) playlist, which included the Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, Undertones … and definitely plenty of David Bowie (which seemed to have skyrocketed on Rudh’s playlist since his death last year). As much as we like Bowie, seeing three Bowie songs in a 25-min span was a little too much. A little more variety wouldn’t hurt.



Robyn Hitchcock opened up the show to a packed dancefloor… playing ‘I Pray When I’m Drunk’ even before the curtains were lifted!
Although the English singer/songwriter paid his dues with The Soft Boys and The Egyptians in the 70s and 80s, as well as a long prolific solo career… he still felt he had to re-introduce himself to a new audience with his forthcoming self-titled new album on Yep Roc Records.



Armed with just an acoustic guitar, Hitchcock effortlessly played songs to songs with very minimal tuning or awkward long pauses between songs. It would be nice to hear a full backing band, but based on Hitchcock’s last-minute changes to his setlist, it’s probably for the best.



Clearly, Hitchcock had enough material to play a three hour set, but given his limited 40-min, he had to pick and choose some songs throughout his solo career. The first half of his set were older songs (with the exception of the first song) with the second half of his set were self-titled heavy (‘I Want To Tell You About What I Want’, ‘Raymond and the Wires’, ‘Mad Shelley’s Letterbox’).



For ‘I Want To Tell You About What I Want’, Hitchcock was ecstatic that local radio station The Current had the single on rotation. He also apologized to the fans for his quick set and said that he was coming back to the area at the Turf Club on June 15 and will have more time to play deeper cuts from his Soft Boys and Egyptians days.



Hitchcock also seemed really approachable, even offering to sign any albums, jokingly adding that he’ll even sign an R.E.M. or Tommy Stinson record. It’s that kind of friendliness that most of the audience will likely also be there for Hitchcock later this Summer.



Like Hitchcock, The Psychedelic Furs also started their set earlier than advertised. The legendary band reformed in 2001 with brothers Richard and Tim Butler, with Paul Garisto, Rich Good, Amanda Kramer and Mars Williams. Although the band could also easily add Love Spit Love (Richard and Tim Butler’s other band) to their catalog, however, the band just focused on The Psychedelic Furs’ seven albums… which proved to be more than enough for their 85-min set.



The Furs’ second half of the set picked up with some of their biggest hits, including ‘Love My Way’ and set closer ‘Pretty in Pink’. Half the audience were singing along to the latter song.



The encore started with ‘President Gas’, a song written in 1982, but seemed more relevant with today’s political climate with these lyrics: “You have to vote and change. You have to get right out of it, like out of all this mess.”



‘Heartbreak Beat’, the Furs’ only top 40 hit, ended the show on a very high note, a nice reward for the faithful who stayed to the end.



The Psychedelic Furs continues their tour:

P.S. Although Robyn Hitchcock is a longtime Bob Dylan fan (and have previously covered his songs), we’re sad to see that no Dylan songs were on his set. It would have been nice to hear, as Dylan is synonymous with Duluth… and to a lesser degree, Minneapolis.

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