Good heavens! It says on Wiki that an early version of Sparks existed in 1968 under the name Halfnelson (mind you it also says Donald Trump is human, so I’m taking this with a pinch of salt).
After a quick name change to Sparks their 1972 breakthrough single, This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, exploded on the scene.
It fitted seamlessly with the ongoing glam rock movement of Marc Bolan in feather boa and half a ton of face glitter, an emaciated Bowie in his ambi-sexual Ziggy persona and reformed bovver boys Slade trampling all before them in a tide of bad spelling and big choruses.
Among them were Sparks, wonderful Sparks, with an Adolf Hitler lookalike on piano and a singer who sounded like a strangled cat. Ron and Russell had arrived.
This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us was so left of centre it caught everybody off guard. That means our dynamic duo have been rocking ironically in a semi-operatic style for nearly fifty years. That is surely an excellent definition of longevity!
It is a wonder of the age that these two guys still remain relevant at the transient coalface of fickle rock n roll. Their new album Hippopotamus is as good as anything they’ve ever created: funny, catchy and just jolly good fun.
The band, all five of them come on dressed in white shirts with horizontal black stripes. Ron and Russ then enter stage right to tumultuous cheers. They look like confused convicts, Russ might be wearing a shiny black syrup of fig, it’s hard to tell but what other frontman do you know who skips when singing? A marvelous sight indeed.
Then there’s Ron who sits almost motionless at his keyboard looking like a not very scary replicant from the new Bladerunner film, and trying not to grin.
Tonight they gave us a set comprising nineteen songs – a good humoured, sentimental knees up for the art rock crowd then progressed apace.
Kicking off with the grin inducing hugely fantastic What the Hell Is It This Time? from the new album and finishing with another 1972 hit Amateur Hour ninety minutes later.
Sandwiched in between were killer recreations of the buoyant and irresistible Good Morning, Scandinavian Design, the lyrically genius I Wish You Were Fun, a blinding Missionary Position and especially Edith Piaf Said It Better, which was phenomenal.
Oldies included, When Do I Get to Sing My Way and 1974’s Propaganda. They even dropped in Johnny Delusional, from their successful 2015 collaboration with Franz Ferdinand – FFS. But it was This Town and 1979’s Number One Song In Heaven that blew the roof off.
The stoney faced Ron’s live party trick – to leave the piano half way through the set, come centre stage, take his tie off, loosen his jacket and do a groovy dance – was priceless. He even smiled!
An emotional farewell and speeches from both of them followed. There was not a dry eye in the house.
Brothers in arms.
Beautiful.
Words by John Haylock, picture by Rod Dykeman
For more information about Sparks, visit their website here.
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