Alphaville Concert

Everything in the eighties was better. Not.

As one gets closer to the looming thirty year limit eternal youth suddenly gains attractivity unproportionally. What better slogan than "Forever Young" for the tortured soul - I lost no time getting to the Alphaville concert.

Ah, the eigthies. The time of high school studies. Squeezed into the solid corset of peer pressure there was exactly one accepted leisure activity. No I am not talking about the trading of 'Footy Cards' - that seems to be more prominent today than ever - but the stacking of data sheets and the almost religious comparison of specifications of stereoes. Today's war between TupperMac and Wintel-Monopolyware was the decision between Hitachi, Sony or Technics in those days. At the outer edge one might have gotten away with Panasonic. Bang & Olufsen was out of reach, the Cray-2 of stereoes so to say, and opting for Sanyo, Aiwa or M-electronics was instant entry into social isolation. Thus were the unwritten laws of teenagedom.

Happily reminiscating about the days when there was no greater joy than to outmatch a friend by acquiring a graphical equalizer with 23 instead of the so far unchallenged 22 frequencies I entered the X-Tra Limmathaus and stood still as if I was nailed to the floor. Right next to the mixer stood not just one but three equalizers. Whether they controlled 22 or 23 frequencies was irrelevant but the message was clear: Welcome back to the Eighties.

We waited for Alphaville's appearance in suspension. We were about to see the band listening to which guaranteed instant ridicule at the end of the eighties but without which one was still not willing to live. The lights fade, some kinde of eighties-patterns are projected onto those vertical trampoline like things on the wall, dry ice produces clouds of steam on the stage and there they are, four old youngsters.

And then shock. What a crime against the ideals of adolescent eighty teenagers: The guy at the mixer has three equalizers and has no clue how to use them. Basses to loud, trebles inexistant. He seems to know no more about the technical intricacies of those machines than we did 15 years ago. You had to have one, the biggest one of course, what you did with it afterwards - apart from building funny looking stairs with the levers - was absolutely irrelevant. That seemed to still hold true nowadays. Or was it just the fact that the band's voices were finally breaking after those 15 years? At least it was loud. Very loud.

The first song is hard to recognise. Due to the meagre quality of the sound I'm shooting a lost look across to my friend, a silent plea for a hint. His answer: "It's no surprise they didn't start off with one of their great, well known hits, that would be too cheap". As it turns out, they are playing "Jet Set Society". One of their three great hits. Too cheap, as he said.

But hey, it's loud. Very loud. Let's get those ear plugs in. This will at least guarantee a semi-humid biosphere in my ears by the end of the concert. Better than nothing. And behold, the distortion of the sound has system. Someone has figured out how to trick the non-linear attenuation of these plugs. Turn up those basses, go easy on the trebles. After filtering it through yellow foam plugs it sounds close to a CD. To make sure that everyone uses the damn things turn the volume all the way up. The neighbours are used to it after all now that Unique Airport is being extended.

The visual effects remind me of the eighties as well. Everywhere. On stage the lead singer swings his hips. I fondly recall the eighties, then he would have been allowed to. Admittedly, my hips are no longer as slim as then, either, but that is why I am hiding my love handles in the audience instead of wobbling them on stage. The singer should maybe give that a go. His gut might bob less obviously.

Everywhere. That includes the trampolines. In the meantime the funky patterns have been replaced by a reddish nuclear waste symbol. Weren't the eighties something. Say April 26th 1986 for example. Nice of them to remind us. A radiant pattern in rememberance of a radiating decade. Next are circular circulating waves. Modern enough to avoid going all the way back in time to meet Tim Leary but still plenty psychedelic. On we go to some weird patterns that somehow remind me of a computer game in which one flew through canyons in a helicopter. Back in the days when 'texture mapping' actually meant you could still see the texture. Or does 'Comanche' belong into the nineties already? They seem to be pretty easy going with conforming to the eighties. Shame on them!

The band has advanced to their second hit by now. Big in Japan is even recognisable. A hit is a hit so I loose the plugs and lo behold. Can't be. Impossible. The looser at the mixer seems not to have gotten any plugs and must have concluded that listening to music through a low pass filter is no joy. Or he might have discovered the manual to the equalizers. Or the semi-humid biosphere has altered my hearing to fit the circumstances. Who cares as long as the music sounds great.

The band goes all the way, the keyboarder more than most. That's the way it's supposed to be. Like those days when a synthesizer still was a synthesizer. In high tones, the more artificial the better. Axel F. taught it, Alphaville perfected it. Who cares about Alfred Mood or Jean-Michel Jarre! Now we're grooving.

And by the time they actually sing what most people here have come to pretend - "Forever Young" - the audience knows no bounds. Which is lucky as the singer has forgotten the chorus and is happy that he can point the mike toward the crowd and that they do his job. Do we get a refund? Or was that planned all along? How clever bands were in those times.

While the mood rises the sadness for the eighties rises fashionwise as well. After all Jeans were still Jeans then. A 100% cotton. Unlike today's paper-pants which consist of 75% synthetic fibres. You sweated then as well but today the pants no longer soak it up. Well, we wouldn't fit into then's jeans anway - not even without breathing.

And at its peak the song ends, the lights go on and the sad truth is blinding. There is no encore. Not feasible as they played all the songs they knew. And when we turn to our friends in certain frustration the band comes back on stage. They seem to have more songs up their sleeves than I remeber. It's enough for two additional sets which the audience properly earns applauding.

Have they changed? Or did they always know how to sing a melancholic ballad? How come they sound so depeche-modesque (all rights to this word creation lie with Reto)? What about the beat? It's still known today it just lacks the melody. The older I get the more often I notice that Techno - which I have occasionally labelled as 'non-music' - is first of all a lot older than I had originally thought and that after 10 years of presence on the market even I seem to tolerate it better than I used to.

When they finally call it quits everybody knows it: The eighties are gone. Luckily? Unfortunately? Doesn't matter. As long as there are those reservations we can happily live in in the present, knowing that there are heroes who are keeping the great achievments and duds of our adolescence alive.

Urs Beeli, Zürich, October 2000