Poetry in Motion

Saturday night I went to see Thomas Dolby perform at The Independent in San Francisco.  I’ve been a huge Thomas Dolby Fan for many years.

I first discovered Dolby as a teenager in the early 80’s,  as I’m sure most people did, with his smash hit “She Blinded me with Science”,  even today whenever I hear “Science” it brings back memories of tinkering around with my old Trs-80 computer, or hanging out at arcades (anyone remember those?) playing Robotron and Pacman with my friends

Later, in the late 90’s I bought “The Best of Thomas Dolby Retrospectacle” And discovered the true Thomas Dolby,  for those who are new to his work, I highly recommend this album.

The show saturday night was the first time I had ever seen Dolby perform live, he is on tour again after taking a 15 year hiatus, and with the 80’s revival currently happening in San Francisco (New Wave City, Kat Club, etc.) it somehow seemed appropriate that Dolby would be touring again; I had to see this show.

When I arrived at the Independent I was surprised to see tables and chairs setup in front of the stage, it made for a very intimate jazz-like setting.

After the opening acts,   Dolby came on stage around 11pm.  He arrived wearing his signature trench coat and a Borg-like contraption on his head that had a mini camera on it,  behind Dolby a large screen showed what the camera captured combined with mixed in imagery for each of his songs, it was a really well done effect of watching Thomas play, morphed with the imagery for each song.

He started the set with some of the great songs from Retrospectacle, including “Europa and the Pirate Twins”, “One of our Submarines”, and “Wind power”.  I was very happy to hear him play my favorite Dolby song “Budapest by Blimp”,    Thomas was extremely charming with the audience, giving little tidbits of background information on the songs, and he even threw T-Shirts to the crowd anytime he messed up, (which only happened twice.)  Also, Kudos’ to whoever created the video/cg clips for the music, it was really well done.

The set ended with him playing “Science” and the crowd went nuts, my friends swore he wouldn’t play it, and he did.   Dolby then came out for an encore where played some of his new work, during which a small glitch happened with the software (and more free T-Shirts), he apologized, stating that he had missed the whole “DJ re-mix” era, which I found ironic, as I’m sure a lot of the today’s modern Electronica/Techno DJ’s (Oakenfold etc.)  would surely credit Dolby’s work in the 70’s and 80’s as an inspiration.

All in all, a great show!

It was a huge thrill to see Thomas Dolby perform in such a small and intimate setting, if you can catch any of the nights remaining on the tour, I highly recommend it.

Porter