I wonder exactly how many blogs are being typed as I speak about the experience that was The B-52s gig at the Roundhouse on Thursday?

Well here's another....Up until they came on I was still unsure they would turn up after two previous tours had been pulled but just after 9pm there they were - magically transported from their own world to ours for the night to flatten us with waves of thumping music.
And what a strange world it is, marked from the get-go in the late 70s as a new wave music equivalent of a drive-in movie double-bill. As they unfurled the inspired insanity of ROCK LOBSTER and PLANET CLARE during the encores all I had in my mind was a z-grade Roger Corman movie mash-up of beach party and sci-fi movies.

They were tub-thumping the new FUNPLEX cd and the new songs slid in nicely with their earlier classics. It must be difficult to choose what to play after so long in the game but they gave us a good overview of their be-wigged career.

Among my favourites were the two already mentioned, LOVE SHACK - as I later said to the Comtesse du Right Nasty the only thing that could have possibly have made it better would have been for RuPaul to come in on a wire - FUNPLEX, MESOPOTAMIA, GIVE ME BACK MY MAN, STROBELIGHT, PUMP and in a glorious middle section we just had Cindy and Kate on stage singing the new single JULIET OF THE SPIRITS and a majestic, inspirational ROAM. There voices melded into their own Wall of Sound.

It was just so good to see them all doing what they do best - Keith whipping his body & guitar across the stage on the thinnest legs known to mankind, Cindy shoeless, playing some great bongos and throwing that blondeness around the stage, Fred just being a law unto himself - a genuinely dangerous stage presence - and the glorious Kate.

This was the biggest thrill of the evening. Along the same lines of being a Frida boy when I liked Abba I have always definitely been a Kate boy. She was wonderful, working the stage like a manic go-go girl in her corset top and tiny skirt, floaty filmy black net overshirt and her kitten-heel sparkly stripper shoes. And that voice... truly one of THE great pop voices, raunchy, playful and full of life. The B-52s are summed up in that voice.

I also have to give some serious props to Tracy Wormworth who WORKED her bass especially during an extended instrumental with Keith during LOVE SHACK. A quick Google led to the revelation that she was the bass player for The Waitresses in the early 80s so way respect.

Needless to say I didn't get too many good photos although we had a great view from the mezz looking across the stage but I like this one... the B-52s giving it to the converted!