SPARKS know how to put on a good show but most importantly know their audience and how to challenge them, to their delight.
While OMD’s live set becomes increasingly cabaret with the tediously insipid ‘So In Love’, ‘Dreaming’ and ‘Locomotion’ now the mainstays leading up to the set climax, SPARKS are happy to revisit their past but not in obvious ways.
Continuing to ‘Do Things My Own Way’ at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, Russell and Ron Mael unleash surprises early on with the return of ‘Reinforcements’ from ‘Propaganda’ and the totally unexpected inclusion of ‘Academy Award Performance’ off the seminal ‘No1 In Heaven’ album. This section gets capped off with the glorious Cossack rock out of ‘Goofing Off’ from 1977’s often forgotten ‘Introducing’ album.
But proceedings fittingly open with ‘So May We Start’ from the musical ‘Annette’ and the SPARKS backing band comprising of new drummer Darren Weiss, his brother Evan on guitar, Eli Pearl (guitar) and Max Whipple (bass) are totally unfazed by the range that is expected of them, playing to sequencers, adapting to changes of tempo and memorising oddball arrangements.
Meanwhile that trio of fan surprises is followed by another Moroder-era stomper from heaven in ‘Beat The Clock’ before the profound plea of ‘Please Don’t F*ck Up My World’ from 2020’s ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ reflected the current head scratching state of the world. Ron got his turn centre stage for the first time in the evening with his dry spoken rendition of ‘Suburban Homeboy’ before Russell joined him for the closing theatrical refrains.
‘All You Ever Think About Is Sex’ provided another fan favourite surprise but getting back up-to-date with the new ‘MAD!’ album, that a break-up song like ‘JanSport Backpack’ can be inspired by a bag popular with Japanese girls is idiosyncratic genius to prove that SPARKS have not let up in their eccentric artistic willing.
The HI-NRG romp of ‘Music That You Can Dance To’ prepared everyone for three with a bullet with the first chorus singalong of the evening for ‘When Do I Get to Sing My Way?’, a thrilling ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’ where the 79 years young Ron did his customary tap dance in the instrumental drum fuelled middle eight and ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ had Russell punching the air with the vigour like he did on that iconic ‘Top Of The Pops’ performance back in 1974 when he was 25 and hitting them high notes too!
Going right back to 1972 and the second SPARKS album ‘A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing’, ‘Whippings and Apologies’ pointed to the almost-metallic climes of when SPARKS first came into being while with the air of a 1975 lost Eurovision entry, ‘Lord Have Mercy’ from ‘MAD!’ provided a wonderfully anthemic end to the main set. The encore included ‘The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte’ but was ‘All That’ from ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ that concluded a glorious evening.
Taking the rapturous applause from a very appreciative audience 54 years after they debuted as recording artists, SPAKS still manage to surprise and satisfy. With a career that long, something was bound to be left out and while songs like ‘Amateur Hour’ and ‘When I’m With You’ were notably absent, they were almost not missed in the obvious enjoyment of all present. It was indeed an ‘Academy Award Performance’ and you really don’t want miss to it…
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Holly Turton at Republic Media
‘MAD!’ is released by Transgressive Records as a CD, cassette, black vinyl LP and lenticular gatefold sleeve with blue vinyl LP
SPARKS 2025 live dates include:
Manchester O2 Apollo (21st + 22nd June), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (24th June), Haarlem PHIL (26th June), Brussels Cirque Royal (28th June), Paris La Salle Pleyel (30th June), Cologne Gloria-Theater (1st July), Copenhagen Koncerthuset (3rd July), Stockholm Grona Lund Tivoli (4th July), Berlin Uber Eats (6th July), Milan Teatro Degli Arcimboldi (8th July), Bilbao BBK Live (12th July), Dublin National Stadium (15th + 16th July), Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre (18th July), Wolverhampton Halls (19th July)
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Text and Photos by Chi Ming Lai
19th June 2025
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