Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark at First Ave, Minneapolis (18 Mar 2018)

Starting the show was DJ Jake Rudh, from Transmission, playing to the crowd with a collection of nostalgic 80s-era British music videos to keep the audience entertained before the first band.

Milwaukee’s Ggoolldd (Margaret Butler, Nick Ziemann, Mark Stewart, and Nick Schubert) was up next. We’ve previously seen the band in October 2016 and knew there was something special about their “singer and dramatic dancer” Margaret Butler. Seeing them with OMD on Sunday night was almost like seeing a completely different band. Butler, now in a bold white unicorn outfit, completely captivated the unsuspecting mostly middle-age audience.



With even more room to dance around, Butler unveiled her light-up swan cape near the end of their brief 30-minute set. They ended their set with “Undercovers”, an upbeat number, but with depressing lyrics: “we are alone, deep under covers.”



You can tell that Ggoolldd is having a great time on this tour with OMD, and, judging from the people surrounding me, that they may have some newfound fans the next time they come back to town.



It’s good to finally get OMD (Andy McCluskey, Paul Humphreys, Martin Cooper, and Stuart Kershaw) back in Minneapolis. It’s been a long journey back for this New Wave British band, as the band originally scheduled for July 8, 2013, only to have it pushed back to July 22nd. Then just days before their appearance at the Varsity Theater, their drummer had a heart attack (or as singer Andy McCluskey affectionally puts it, “tried to die”) and the group had to cancel their remaining 2013 tour.



With a new 13th studio album Punishment Of Luxury (White Noise Records), the band promised “some new songs”, but quickly added, “as well as old” to the crowd’s delight.



And indeed, plenty of classic fan-favorite songs were played. Right before “Messages” (from their self-titled debut album in 1980), Andy, breaking out the bass guitar “for the old songs”, asked us, “You did bring your dancing shoes, didn’t you? It was on the ticket!”, this was followed by another classic sing-along song “Tesla Girls” from 1984’s Junk Culture.



Of course, who could not love hearing their biggest hit single, “If You Leave”, which many fans probably first heard it on John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink film in 1986. The film soundtrack helped moved OMD’s song to #4 on Billboard Hot 100 that summer. It is the song that many fans came to hear, and as evident, about a hundred cellphones went up in the air to record the moment.



For “Time Zones 2016”/“Of All the Things We’ve Made”, all four band members came to the front of the stage, with simple drum, guitar and handheld electronics. As soon as the song ended, Andy joked, “that’s about as unplugged as we get.”



The band ended their set with their signature song, “Enola Gay”, which Andy graciously thanked their fans, “Thank you SO much- you have been wonderful to play to tonight!… This is your last chance to dance!”



The three-song encore started “Dreaming”. Then afterward, Andy bent forward and pretending to whisper to the crowd before keyboardist Paul Humphreys took the lead vocals for “Secret”.



With the final song, Andy asked the crowd, “Are you tired?” and the crowd screamed back “No!”. Andy continued, “because we do want to play do want to play this song, but it’s so fast-
we want to end at the beginning, this is the oldest song we’ve got.” The set-ending song was “Electricity”, which was written in 1979, written when Andy and Paul were both sixteen years old.



Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark continues their Punishment Of Luxury tour.