I know I’m going to date myself, but I’ve been waiting 25 years to see Yaz perform live. When I heard that Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet were reuniting for the “Yaz: Reconnected” tour, I was really excited. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about a concert since back in high school when I saw Echo & the Bunnymen for the first time in 1983. You see, Yaz, known as Yazoo in the UK, had broken up at the height of their success in 1983 before ever touring the United States.
Tickets went on sale four months before the concert, so there was plenty of time for anticipation and planning. I got a fistful of tickets and arranged a mini-reunion for me & 5 of my best friends from high school, all of which were also big Yaz fans. To top it all off, the concert was to take place at my favorite venue, the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, CA. What more could a girl ask for? Favorite classic act reuniting, best friends attending, favorite venue, great seats; getting a photo pass was just the icing on the cake. As the date approached, I began to fret. Had I set might sight too high? Maybe I’d built the whole thing up too much. When you hope and wish for so long, can the real thing really live up to the perfect picture in your mind?
The festivities started around noon when I picked up my friend Phil from the airport. He’d flown in especially for the show, and with his arrival, it hit me that the day I had been dreaming about was actually here. It was a very early show (7:30) with no opening act, and the venue was on the opposite side of the bay. So with the sun still high in the sky and a stop at Peet’s to keep us heavily caffeinated, we began our carpool east. I’m glad we arrived a little early, as there was one snag. Unfortunately, my photo pass was MIA. In the end, this didn’t matter so much, as I found out that passes were only for the first two songs, from the soundboard all the way at the rear of the venue. My lenses would have been slow and useless from such a distance. Even this snag wasn’t going to dampen my spirits. we had great seats, great friends, and the show was just minutes away.
The last show I’d been to was Fleet Foxes, the week previous. As I waited for Yaz to take the stage, I couldn’t help but think about the dichotomy. Last week’s Fleet Foxes show was hairy hippies singing hymn-like songs at a tiny venue, the band was barely past puberty, they were wide-eyed and inexperienced. Tonight’s show was pure electronics, two 40-something Brits in black who hadn’t spoken to each other in 18 years, playing a 3,000+ seated show with nothing but a laptop and bald head. However, once the show began, I realized that despite the myriad of differences in where they’d come from, both shows had one very important thing in common; a passion for the music, and sheer delight and appreciation at performing for a sold-out room full of extremely excited and eager fans.
Yaz opened with “Nobody’s Diary,” and easily transitioned into one of their poppiest tunes, “Bad Connection>” Alison’s deep husky voice was as strong and emotive as ever. It is the contrast between her bluesy voice and Vince’s stark arpeggiated synthesizers that made Yaz such an influential act. The Pet Shop Boys, Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, Goldfrapp and Hot Chip all inherit a large chunk of DNA from this seminal group. The woman in the row ahead of me must have overheard me discussing how I’d be reviewing the show, because several songs into the set, she reached around and grabbed me insisting that I had to write about Alison’s voice, and how it had lost nothing over the years. I completely agree; If anything Alison sounder stronger and more grounded, coming from a very positive place, clearly quite surprised and flattered by the cheering and dancing of thousands of effusive fans. These San Francisco fans have been waiting 25 years to see Yaz perform live, and the audience was completely enamored with the evening’s performance, the first stop in a 7-city tour of the United States.
Yaz covered all the bases, and never failed to disappoint. My only nit was with the fans; they remained seated for the slower numbers. Perhaps they were just resting their weary 40-something bones between the incredibly danceable numbers such as “Don’t Go” and “Goodbye ’70’s.” Alison seemed to loosen up as the night went on, venturing off her circular stage and dancing around for the final songs as well as the encore, which included two of their biggest US hits, the classic ballad “Only You” and the dance hall sensation, “Situation.”
Vince didn’t venture far from his small keyboard and laptop, except to roll out an old school reel to reel recorder for a funky reworked version of the instrumental, “I before E except after C.” I’ve seen Vince Clarke perform half a dozen times with Andy Bell as Erasure over the past 20 years He’s normally a bit robotic and doesn’t show much emotion, let alone crack a smile. Tonight was different. Vince and Aliison held hands and embraced as they walked off stage. You could tell he, too, was enjoying this wonderful moment of celebration and closure, 25 years in the making.
