Some thoughts and reflections on Spark’s gig at the Sydney Opera House on 31/10/2023 and their career in general.
- While The Beatles and Paul McCartney may have been my pick of the greatest band and songwriter of all time. Sparks and Ron Mael is my pick for my favourite band and songwriter of all time and the band I am most fanatical about. I am one of many Beatles fans out there however Sparks seems like an exclusive cult that very few people know about. Sparks have 26 albums and I like at least 24 of them and that new releases I will be excited to hear.
- Sparks is one of the groups that I always wanted to see live but was somewhat pessimistic about whether I would ever get the opportunity to see them live and that the only possibility to achieve this wish is to travel overseas to watch them perform live. They may exist as a cult band in the UK due to a few hits from Kimono My House and No. 1 In Heaven. They have some cult presence in the United States due to their appearance on Saturday Night Live and their duet with Jane Wiedlin. However, most of their albums and singles don’t even chart here in Australia. Their biggest hit “This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" was a number 2 hit single in the UK but only charted 69 here and would be an obscure song here. Essentially Sparks presence in Australia is essentially “When I’m With You” which surprisingly charted 17 and noted Russell Mael's reference during the gig that this was a hit here and the rest of the career is obscurity. Sparks is a band that the only people who know they exist are on the internet. There is one person I met in real life who recognised them, but this was a British migrant who heard their songs when growing up in England. I don’t think anyone growing up in Australia would have heard of them and I can’t imagine there is a much business case for them to tour Australia until very recently. I suspect the Spark’s Brother documentary and Annette may have changed things allowing them to tour here. So, watching Sparks live is probably the most exciting I have ever been anticipating a concert even more than Paul McCartney.
- I speculate that the venue at Sydney Opera House is one of the main reasons why Sparks even toured Australia. Russell Mael came here as a tourist and marvelled at the venue. Mentioned that Mael’s brother then dreamt about playing at the venue. It was repeated throughout the concert the sense of awe and disbelief of playing inside such a famed venue and couldn’t resist an opportunity to come here. This brought me back to “How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?” despite all the time they “practice, man, practice” success eluded them as represented by "All of this I did for you, Still, there is no sign of you". The protagonist of that song (and Sparks ) was unsuccessful in playing at Carnegie Hall, Sparks was unsuccessful in reaching fame and stardom however their “practice, man, practice” got them to reach the Sydney Opera House and I sense that this was very much meaningful achievement and vindication of them persisting in their music career despite their struggles. They were just as (or even more) excited to perform there as I was in watching them. I guess as a local Australian, I never thought of the Sydney Opera House as anything special and took it for granted.
- Setlist is quite surprising in what they didn’t play. Live favourites that were present in numerous bootlegs and official releases were not performed on this tour. There was no “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”, “Amateur Hour, “Suburban Homeboy”, “The Rhythm Thief”, “Dick Around, “At Home, At Work, At Play”. There was nothing from “Indiscreet” and surprisingly less emphasis on their 70’s period. They play a maximum of 1 song per album outside their new album in which they are touring “This Girl Is Crying In Her Latte” with 6 songs and surprisingly “Music That You Can Dance To” with two songs. I think they took the opportunity this tour to play songs that they hadn’t played much from earlier tours. “The Toughest Girl In Town” from Interior Design is a pretty deep cut for them to revive.
- Perhaps it was bad timing the moment that Sparks toured Australia. It was touring one of the 2 albums in their career that I don’t quite get yet. What I like about 00’s era Sparks is that there is superficial repetition that gives the song a hypnotic feel but combined with large-scale variations in arrangement and dynamics that give the song a dramatic arc with an introduction, climax and resolution. In the more recent Sparks album, I do feel there was repetition but although there can be subtle arrangement variation, not to the same degree as the 00’s albums which makes the song somewhat monotonous in feel and there isn’t the same degree of melodicism of the 70’s work to compensate. However, I significantly enjoyed the performances in the live setting compared to the studio release. They pick the better songs in the album to perform live and one of the benefits of hearing any modern album from any band live is that you can hear the song perform without modern mastering practices of loudness wars and removing dynamic range from music (noted judging from the dynamic range database their latest album had the least dynamic range of their career). Hearing it live without the compression mastering, these ‘subtle arrangement” change throughout the songs sounds a hell of a lot more dramatic in the live context compared to the studio version. It was significantly more interesting to listen to and I surprisingly enjoyed the performances of songs from the album that I didn’t care much for before the concert.
- This is probably one of the best concerts I have attended in terms of performance quality (up there with Radiohead and Crowded House). Paul McCartney’s concert evoked a feeling of “Wow, isn’t it great that this 81-year-old legend is still performing live”. Yeah, Paul McCartney's voice sounds aged but it’s cruel to judge him from that. Sparks evoked feelings of “wow, these men in the 70’s are performing with the same level as their 20 yo self”. The Mael brothers look 20 years younger than their actual age. Russell Mael (age 75) is singing somewhat complex vocal melodies line with a heavy falsetto and hitting every note with pitch-perfect accuracy while being energetic on stage and jumping around. Russell Mael can still hit the “I Ain’t going to leave” outro of “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us”. I think if you listen to a bootleg recording from 2023 and compare it to the 1970s bootleg, there isn’t particularly any significant deterioration in vocal performance.
- Reading the biography of Sparks it seems like the Mael brothers were people who liked both rock music and electronic/dance music but were detached observers of the culture of what the music represents (which is part of the reason why I like them so much as it is similar to my outlook). This often is credited as an attitude that allowed them to make satirical music about both rock and dance music. However, what’s often overlooked is that this also allowed them to avoid the pitfalls of the decadence of what each genre represents and perhaps explain their career longevity. From what I gather, in the 70’s the rest of the band goes out and parties and gets drunk after a gig while the Mael Brothers go home and rest. Both the Mael brothers have reputations as health and gym freaks who treat their bodies like the temple. Most rock and rollers peaked in their 20’s but then when you watch them perform in their later years you will see their vocals affected by aging and likely the effects of substance misuse. Even the milder rock and roll star like Paul McCartney likely had his voice aged by chronic cannabis use.
- One of the highlights was the performance of the title track “Music That You Can Dance To” which I was excited to hear encapsulate this copying the form but maintaining the outside observer perspective described earlier. It can be enjoyed as a straight-ahead dance song and I note that this was the moment in the gig that caused the entire audience to stand up from previously sitting down on the seat and they remained standing and dancing for the rest of the concert (including myself). However, I have always interpreted that song as an annoying person aggressively trying to aggravate someone who is not interested in dancing and prefers to listen to symphony or jazz to get up and dance causing them to scream out in agony (as per the female backing vocalist)
- Some nit-pick. I’m not entirely impressed with them playing Shopping Mall Of Love. I get that it has a functional role in this concert that this is one of the few songs where Ron Mael is the “lead vocalist” and hence gives him a moment to shine and for the crowd to cheer for him but it is one of the weakest songs of their career. It would have been ok if they reworked the song as I think there is potential in the chorus to be a sort of “The Calm Before The Opera” style arrangement, however, spoken words over a minimal arrangement that doesn’t change throughout the song are lazy and there wasn’t any effort to fix the song. If you want Ron Mael a moment to shine just get him to do his famous dance more often or do the “Ron Speaks” version of Suburban Homeboy. I do also wish they performed the “heavenly” part 1 of The Number One Song In Heaven rather than skipping straight to part 2. That song is part of Spark’s detached observer of dance music and its culture but instead of satirical mocking, it states that genre like dance music/disco was capable of expressing transcendence and being a conduit of divine inspiration as any other “more serious” genres of music and Part 1 is a crucial part of that. It’s the contrast between the two parts that make the song great and Part 1 shouldn’t be reduced to a 30-second intro.
- The best song of the night is Beaver O’Lindy. The Mael/Mankey brothers era of the group remains my favourite era of their illustrious career. In that era they were at their peaks as a melodist and I think they were at Lennon/McCartney, the arrangement was interesting with this song as a multipart song with three different contrasting sections with different dynamics and it didn’t always rely on Ron Mael’s keyboard doubling the vocals which became typical of his career (noting that the bass is the most prominent instrument of the song)
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