Review: The Signal 25th Birthday Concert
The Signal 25th Birthday Concert Trentham Gardens
IT'S 25 years since Signal radio started broadcasting in North Staffordshire and Cheshire. To mark the event, three of the top musicians of the era performed last night at Trentham Gardens, bringing a mix of sounds and styles from the 1980s.
Technical problems before the concert left people queuing for up to two hours and resulted in schedule delays.
This was not the best start and meant that Ali Campbell, pictured, – former lead vocalist for UB 40 – had a tough job in warming up the audience.
Thankfully Campbell's distinctive voice and his new groups' deliciously mellow brand of soft reggae, proved to be quality. The set included many well-known songs such as "Kingston Town" and "Falling in love".
Go West were the next on stage providing a great contrast of music with an energetic performance of upbeat dance tracks. The Duo introduced more recent material as well as 80s hits such as "Kings of Wishful Thinking" and a cover of "Vertigo". Unfortunately, the performance seemed plagued with sound quality difficulties and the set was cut short due to the initial delays.
The final headline act was the Human League, which personally I enjoyed the most. The group's crisp, electro pop style has stood the test of time with vocalist Phil Oakley's deep voice sounding clear, strong and simply wonderful! The set commenced with a powerful delivery of "Lebanon", instantly energising the crowd. Hits that followed included "Mirror Man" "Tell me When" and "Fascination". It may have been a quarter of a century since they first found fame but band members still looked as well as sounded enviably cool! Again the set seemed short, but the League responded to demands for an encore, leaving the audience together in "Electric Dreams".
It must be said that on this special night, the audience were also stars, and remained determined to have a great time through long delays, technical hitches and shortened performances.
Fern Basnett
21 Comments
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by marc c, Tunstall
Thursday, October 09 2008, 1:09AM
“ok i agree the queues were ridiculous, signal 1 didnt seem to care about leaving us all waiting for hours on end, but when it actually started it was brilliant. i dont know whay Ali Campbell bothered sticking around, he was great, but unfortunately most of the crowd were booing him for ages. it wasnt his fault. his only faults i think was that he didnt sing higher ground or red red wine. but the classics he did sing such as i cant help falling in love, kingston town, running free & charles & eddies would i lie to you, were worth me waiting in the queue. go west were ace, i had been looking forward to seeing them for months. every song was great, & singing vertigo was just a shock to me, never thought id here go west singing a u2 song. they did all the best 1s, & we close our eyes is 1 of the best songs you could wish to hear live. & faithful was ace, & king of wishful thinking, well the crowd went nuts, was great atmosphere. human league were also brilliant. i was gutted that he didnt sing human, but he still did so many of the great classics & ending on together in electric dreams was just perfect end to the crappy start. sod the people who moaned about the queues, yeah they were bad but the concert was ace so there you go”
by Gwen, ches
Tuesday, September 23 2008, 11:25PM
“Anon of stafford Im not moaning i just want to tel people to stop blaming Ali it wasnt his fault. The organisers worked hard all day to get the show on i agree with you totally they could have called it all off. Im just angry that he's getting the blame. They worked very hard for the show. organisers and the artists.”
by Laney, stoke on trent
Tuesday, September 23 2008, 11:18PM
“We were backstage at the concert and i have to say i was dissappointed at the delay in the start time of the show but it was all down to technical difficulties, a lot of people seem to be triyng yo blame Ali fot the delay but how is it his fault when he recieved a phone call to say that there was a delay so there was no point in him turning up for his sound check at the previously selected time, he still had to wait for a further hour to do his sound check after his second selected time. Who can be blamed for the technical difficulties that happened??? For example who would you blame in your house hold if your TV went on the blink, 1 of the actors in the soap you were about to watch??? I dont think much more than an appology from signal for the lack of communication to the people waitng in the que can be done. I dont think the event organisers or the artists were to blame for the hold up. Watching from backstage we could see everything that was being done to keep the show on that night and i thank the organisers for a top day and night!!!!”
by anonymous, stafford
Tuesday, September 23 2008, 5:03PM
“none of you have any clue wot u r talking about. i was backstage and we spent all of that saturday evening trying to put on a concert 4 u. The problems were because of a particular staging company that did not set up correctly. you all got your concert in the end and by the sound of it you enjoyed it overall because I WAS THERE!!!!!! TRYING TO HELP GET THIS CONCERT UP AND RUNNING! so quit moaning. signal were not to blame.”
by Gwen, Ches
Tuesday, September 23 2008, 3:31PM
“TO Warren if you dont like the song why are you moaning about it. so what who gives a stuff who sang it 1st UB40 did a wicked cover of it in facck UB40 do a lot of covers for a lot of people and they give the roalties for doin it. Get a life n stop moaning,”