Not Rock On

Today it is Reunification Day in Germany, so it is a day off, that's why you get this post with a connection to then separated Berlin in 1980.

Human League, combining electronics with Pop in the late seventies with their albums Travelogue and Reproduction (don't expect links, you can find them anywhere) were really great in trying to sound difficult, while they were POP. This might have it's roots in the two teams in the band. Phil Oakey, the guy with the Blade Runner makeup and Adrian Lyne, who later carried on (get the pun, eh?) with Human League were on the more Pop/Fun side (although Adrian was a bit arty) while Ian Craig-Marsh and Martyn Ware wanted to back the electronic music revolution with the liberation of the proletariat!

They tried so with Heaven 17 (The name came, off course, from Clockwork Orange. Now it is easy to find it cheesy, but I think they really meant it!)

Fantastic Pop songs, not much impact on the masses concerning the revolution...

This posting gives you the Human League concert in the Kant Kino in West-Berlin on November, 23rd 1980, although I think it is not the complete concert, but you never know with these early 80s bands. Sometimes they just wanted to tell the audience that they have to accept what the artists are willing to give.

As a bonus you get the "Dancing like a star" EP from ca. 1977 actually released in 2002 with some songs by the Human League predecessors The Future and "Perfect day" (later included in the BEF's "Music of quality and distinction", I really love this record! Expect a post as soon as I have my record collection back in my hands!) from a concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, although I do not have a date for this. I am not absolutely sure if the bonus material is really as mentioned. I bought this tape via the net a few years ago, so I hope the information is ok. There are some mistakes in the original playlist (see pic). I hope I could correct them all. If anybody knows more, please leave a comment.

Human League - Live 23.11.1980 Kant Kino Berlin

Human League - Live 23.11.1980 Kant Kino Berlin Bonus material (Dancing like a star EP)+

Here are some links:

The early work of Human League

Human League

inofficial HL site

The creator of this Blog template called Beckett changed the location of his server and also had some mistakes in the html code. I hope I fixed everything now manually. If you find any more glitches, please leave a message in the latest post.

Labels: Live recordings

Posted by Jörg on 03.10.2007 at 10/03/2007 05:35:00 AM | Permalink