I suspect each of us has a period of time from our past that we think of as special, possibly even magical. For me it’s the 1980s, the decade I transitioned from being in my teens to my twenties.
Looking back, the fashion seems gaudy and overdone. I recall wearing an outfit consisting of stone-washed jeans and jacket combo with a purple shirt at one point – groan! But while my taste in clothes has changed, my love of the music from that decade has endured, and some forty years later it’s still as fresh and exciting as it was when I first heard it.
It was therefore with a great deal of joy, I attended Auckland Phil’s latest concert Back to the 80s featuring the talented vocalists Bella Kalolo, Dillon Rhodes, and Maaka Pohatu.
After reviewing the orchestra a number of times now, I think I’ve run out of superlatives. I mean what more can you say about a set of musicians who always perform with such precision and beauty no matter the genre?
The pop music from this decade used a lot of synthesisers and other electronic sounds, and in this concert, the usual mix of orchestral instruments was augmented with electric guitars and some synth sounds. This combination worked beautifully and gave the music a full, triumphant resonance.
The Phil always brings in conductors who have their own personality and flair and on this night, David Kay was up to the task. He clearly enjoyed his time on the podium and as professional as he clearly is, he joined in with some of the singing and, at one point, engaged in a fun and impromptu acrobatic routine with Dillon Rhodes.
And the music? Well, what can I say? The soundtrack to my youth played out live. Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston. A heady mix of ballads, rock and roll, pop, and all of it sung so well by a delightful trio.
Rhodes kicked things off with The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and instantly I pictured Marty McFly riding a skateboard. Rhodes’ voice is incredibly versatile and he has one hell of an amazing falsetto. Later in the show he gave a sublime rendition of Richard Marx’s Right Here Waiting and seemed to expertly channel Phil Collins when singing Sussudio.
Kalolo’s first song was a soulful and moving version of Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes. Kalolo is a powerhouse, a stunning voice which she varies according to the song and the mood. She makes each track her own while keeping faith to the original, as she did while singing the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams or Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time.
Pohatu, as you would expect from a founding member of the Modern Māori Quartet, has a deep and expressive voice. He used it to great effect in a stunning rendition of Simply Red’s Holding Back the Years, and in The Time of My Life, which he sang with Kalolo.
There are some songs that become generation-defining and judging from the reaction to Kalolo’s stunning covers of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Madonna’s Material Girl then these two songs touched everyone in the theatre.
The concert ended with Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, a song that has become almost a cliché for the decade that spawned it. Yet, people were up and dancing and it was sung really well. In many ways, it is the right song for the 80s, after all, many of us will never give up on the music of that madcap decade. This was one phenomenal concert and left me wanting more!