Show Pics: Howard Jones @ ACL Live (6/28)

The wife was feeling nostalgic when she bought tickets to see Howard Jones perform Human’s Lib and Dream Into Action. Think of all the soundtracks, montages, sing-alongs on 80’s night. “Like To Get To Know You Well” makes me want to restore a Camaro with a French girl.

HoJo was one of the guys pushing Synth Pop. Listen back to these early albums and tell me you don’t pick up on Twin Shadow, Chairlift and others currently pulling these new wave tones back up top. And Human’s Lib, despite it’s happy singles, is a pretty dark album.

I figured I might as well take some pics.

It was a small crowd for the big venue, upstairs closed off. It had a “night with” or ACL taping feel to it. There was waitstaff bringing beverages, plenty of space to get your Molly Ringwald dance on. Everyone knew every word.

The guy that looks like Otho, Robbie Bronnimann, played a big part in reverse engineering the synthesizer tones used in the studio. Jonathan Atkinson handled drum-kit duty. Bummer of the night was technical difficulties ruining keytar solos.

Dream Into Action and Human’s Lib tracklisting overlap. He went through Dream Into Action first, took a break, hit the rest of Human’s Lib to finish out. The afore-mentioned montage song won best track for me. The closer, “New Song”, had people humming and whistling the hook leaving the venue (and awkwardly in the restroom).

Nostalgia.

There are a few more pics at the photo site…