sign o' the times

the bananarama girls - sarah and karen, minus siobhan

i just came back from "the best of 80s" concert in genting. i couldn't help but feeling a wee bit melancholic. don't blame me.

the concert boasts of 80s acts like johnny hates jazz, paul young, limahl (from kajagoogoo), howard jones and bananarama. you know you are old when you know who these people are. majority of the audience were uncles and aunties in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. it was surprising to find some obviously young 20-somethings among the crowd.

just when we were (8 of us) about to bask in the glory of the past, we were rather shocked to discover how old and aged our favorite singers have become. paul young ("love of the common people", "every time you go away", "everything must change"), is definitely not young with his terribly broken vocal chord, trying hard to impress with his piercing voice. it was torturous for us to bear with his broken voice. at least, he has plenty of showmanship to make up for his poor voice. howard jones, the one-man synthesizer band, is much better tho' his hair has completely gone white. jonhny hates jazz ("shattered dreams", "i don't want to be a hero", "turn back the clock") is no longer the same with a different lead vocalist who is not half as good as the original man but their catchy tunes stuck in my head for the long time. listening to "turn back the clock", it almost moved me to tears with its lyrics "i wish i can turn back the clock, to a time when love was so much better....". gosh, these are achingly thoughtful lyrics for some of us.

so when bananarama, the british fun girl trio (who was once the darling of trio-producer team stock-aitken-waterman (SAW) pop factory in the 80s), appeared, i was bracing for the worse. when i was a student in the 80s, karen woodward - the prettiest bananarama girl - was my poster girl. from what i could see, karen still looked good on stage, while sarah dallin has definitely grown old and slightly fat. "they must be in the 40s now", i uttered to myself. the two middle-aged women still prance and dance a lot on the stage, complete with synchronized dance steps, exactly the same as they did in the 80s. listening to "love in the first degree", "i heard a rumour" and "venus", my goose bumps were all raised....

i wonder if they perform for a living or as a hobby. some of these 80s artistes are obviously way past their shelf life. it is a sad thing if at this age you still need to act young to please the equally aging crowd.

so it was a night of reminiscing and nostalgia, and some morbid thoughts (about aging). one of the my classmates, who went for the concert, cracked a rather funny but morbid joke. he said if the organizer were to organize a "best of the 60s" concert, there would be very few audience.... cos most of them are not around anymore.