The B-52s, Glasgow review: 'gleeful, glorious pop music'
New wave icons The B-52s were in soaring, potent form for this Glasgow show, writes Fiona Shepherd
The B-52s & The Rezilllos, Barrowland, Glasgow ★★★★
It is always a joy to enter the alternative dimension that is a B-52s concert. These cartoony new wave icons - hailing allegedly from Athens, Georgia, but occupying a space definitely more outer (and outré) - are still wigging out in their 70s, maintaining a commitment to interplanetary partying that is quite remarkable.
However, there was preparation to be done before touchdown on Planet Claire. Edinburgh’s Rezillos were the ideal warm-up for the main attraction, with whom they share kitschy sci-fi obsessions and a commitment to colourful costumes and outlandish hairstyles. Warm-up was the word, with those hairdos wilting as the sultry heat in Barrowland escalated.
Like The B-52s, Rezillos frontfolks Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds have kept the faith and continue to grow old disgracefully, leaning into bubblegum rock’n'roll with the revving rhythms of Motorbike Beat, stomping Top of the Pops and bonus cover of The Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz, surely pitched in there especially for Barrowland.
The B-52s are an altogether weirder proposition and yet every step of their set was gleeful, glorious pop music. The rules of engagement: dance hard but party responsibly. Opening with Planet Claire, sci-fi siren Kate Pierson, manifesting as a glitterati Harlequin, tapped into Star Trek theme vibes, while her co-conspirator Cindy Wilson took the beseeching lead on the punky girl group call of Give Me Back My Man, with chief mischief maker Fred Schneider accompanying her on an angel lyre-shaped xylophone to embellish their music of the bizarro-spheres.
With a few notable exceptions, the set majored on their first two albums, with early number Lava described as “sexology meets geology” and Dance This Mess Around accompanied by uplifting archive footage of freaky dancing down the decades. Pierson and Wilson were in soaring, potent form on Roam and the feelgood rallying cry Love Shack but the heat proved too much for Wilson who bowed out of the encore beach party of Rock Lobster - unless that was her in the disco lobster costume?
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