Human League/Soft Cell/Alison Moyet Generations Tour at Radio City Music Hall

Since there was no Cruel World festival this year, I did what I thought what was the next best thing: I bought a ticket to see Human League, Soft Cell and Alison Moyet’s Generations Tour at Radio City Music Hall.

Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” are probably two of the most popular songs of the ’80s and, even though I’d recently seen Soft Cell and Moyet at Cruel World, I hadn’t seen Human League since the early ’80s at New York City’s Palladium. (Human League’s set at Cruel World was cut short by “severe weather,” but I was watching Iggy Pop at one of Cruel World’s other stages. His set was also cut short.)

First of all, it must be said that Radio City Music Hall is a breathtaking venue. Not only is it the largest indoor theater in the world, it’s also one of the most beautiful. I was trying to think of some of the other shows I’d seen there: Talking Heads’ Remain in Light tour (where I sat in the last row), Pet Shop Boys, B52s, Sade. (Yes, it’s been a while.)

Alison Moyet opened the show. Moyet owes a lot of her early success to Vince Clarke, the songwriter for their duo, Yazoo (Yaz in the US) as well as early Depeche Mode and Erasure, and she performed several Yazoo songs: “Don’t Go,” “Situation,” “Only You,” “Nobody’s Diary.” I wasn’t as familiar with some of her solo work (except for “Love Resurrection”) and I thought the bass player in her band was a little loud, overpowering her vocals and the other instruments, but she received rapturous applause, nonetheless.

Next up was Soft Cell, which now consists solely of founding vocalist Marc Almond, since multi-instrumentalist and producer David Ball passed away last year. (Almond paid tribute to Ball at the end of his set.)

Soft Cell’s breakthrough album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret captured a certain era of New York and London nightlife. Videos during their set featured ’80s New York celebrities like Klaus Nomi and John Sex and clubs like the Pyramid and Danceteria. Almond performed a new song called “Danceteria” (from Soft Cell’s new album, also named Danceteria) and mentioned that he was wearing a Danceteria T-shirt. (There’s also a song called “Danceteria” on Madonna’s new album, Confessions II. I wonder if Jim Fouratt and Rudolf are getting royalties?)

I thought Almond’s vocals sounded a little thin at first, but he recovered nicely on “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” and, of course, “Tainted Love.” (Is it the difficulty of reproducing recorded vocals live or just my memory? I’ll have to go back and listen to my 12-inch single of “Memorabilia.”)

I also liked “Nostalgia Machine,” a 2022 song I wasn’t familiar with, and, interestingly, he performed a cover of Was (Not Was)’s “Out Come the Freaks” (also from Danceteria).

Finally, Human League. Their 1981 album, Dare, was a watershed album, scoring several hits in the UK, and its songs featured heavily in their set: “The Sound of the Crowd,” “The Things That Dreams Are Made Of,” “Seconds” “Love Action” and, of course, “Don’t You Want Me.” They also performed “Mirror Man,” “Louise,” “The Lebanon,” “Human,” “Tell Me When,” “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” and “Together in Electric Dreams,” lead singer Philip Oakey’s collaboration with Giorgio Moroder.

Oakey sounded even better than I expected and so did backup singers Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley, who sang lead vocal on (previously unfamiliar to me) “One Man in My Heart.”

All of which is to say that I was magically transported to early ’80s New York after-hours club, Berlin, where I first heard most of these songs. (The pre-show ’80s soundtrack also helped.)

And who could blame me for wanting to, as Cher might say, “turn back time.”

After all, I’m only human.

Love Story: Bait and Switch

I had no intention of watching Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. I thought it was going to be just another example of Ryan Murphy trash TV. It lured me in with its promise of ’90s nostalgia and the usual Murphy mixture of beautiful people in glamorous locations, but then turned the tables on me and became something that I was still thinking about hours after it ended. It became a deeply affecting drama that turned two people who had been mere tabloid fixtures into three-dimensional human beings I actually cared about. It became more than just a love story, but a meditation on the destructive nature of fame itself.

The series starts with the courtship of JFK Jr. and Bessette, a publicist at Calvin Klein, with Bessette playing hard to get, while JFK Jr. is still nominally dating actress Daryl Hannah.

This is the fun part of the series. This is the part that gave me something I never knew I wanted: ’90s nostalgia. A pre-cell phone era filled with glamorous restaurants (Odeon, Indochine, Bubby’s), great music (Madonna, Sade), and celebrities (Calvin Klein, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss).

By the end of the series, JFK Jr. and Bessette are struggling to keep their marriage together as Bessette, who has quit her publicist job due to all the media attention focused on her, feels trapped inside their apartment.

I don’t know what went on in the personal lives of JFK Jr. and Bessette, so I have to look at this as a work of fiction. (There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode that says some people and events were fictionalized for dramatic purposes.) But as a work of fiction, it’s extremely well done.

The great writing (Connor Hines is the primary screenwriter) is helped by strong performances by Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Jessica Harper as Ethel Kennedy, Constance Zimmer as Carolyn Bessette’s mother (Ann Messina Freeman), Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein. Even Paul Anthony Kelly (JFK Jr.) and Sarah Pigeon (Carolyn Bessette), who, like the people they portray, are two of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, turn in affecting performances.

There’s been some controversy about the portrayal of Daryl Hannah (played by Dree Hemingway). She comes off as a bit of an airhead. (If you read Hannah’s well-written essay in The New York Times, you know that she’s much more than a ditzy movie star.) But even the fictionalized Hannah comes across as someone who tried to save JFK Jr. from the trap of his own fame.

Murphy is primarily known for guilty pleasures like The Beauty, Feud and American Horror Story. But this, along with The Boys in the Band and The Normal Heart, may be one of the best series he’s done.

I just hope it doesn’t spawn a JFK Jr. bus tour.

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