yes, indeed i am aware that there's a certain other event of (significant) music meaning for me which happened on this day, with the date today being the tenth of january. i do, however, believe that Bowie gets quite frequent mentions here, look you see. giving over one day to Frankie doesn't seem all that much in the grans scheme of things.
once again it was so that i said "no", there's nothing left for me to say or share in regards of the day when i went and gone done saw Frankie live. with my Uncle, of course (no, the other one). but then i got messing about with an older "netbook" device, needing some file or other from it, and there sat the bootleg tape (transferred to mp3) of the actual gig i was at. also sat there was the software to edit it down a bit, so as to present another song from the show.
due, mostly, to the poor quality of the audio on the below video i am not too sure how much interest it shall be to anyone. for me that the recording exists at all is a happy thing, and that will suffice. i cannot confirm it but i am assuming someone bootlegged it on a very fancy walkman that had a microphone on it. believe me, this was not a standard feature of such devices.
well, here you go, on the off chance you were at the Manchester G Mex (as it once was) on January 10 1987, behold the sound (on a black screen video as it is the only way i can add it here) of Frankie Goes To Hollywood (very much) doing Rage Hard.
this song, Rage Hard, was famously the "comeback" single for the band. it came out in 1986, and was just about the first "new" thing heard from them since 1984. well, if you allow for the only release of 1985, the Welcome To The Pleasuredome single, being rather widely heard in the year before. a strange thing, for as exciting as their return was, it pretty much marked the start of the end. not sure exactly when in 1986 the single came out (i vaguely recall late summer), but within a year of it making it only to number 4 (four) in the charts, the band ceased to exist. oh. still, i got the chance to see them.
how and why did Frankie fall, or possibly fail? lots of reasons, with the most prominent and likely ones being related to how members of the band were not exactly keen to work together no more. personal and professional reasons, really, none of which are likely things i am best placed to write of.
mostly, i think, it was that the fun element of the band had gone. sure, there were a few bits of fun hidden away, like the riotous tour of the twelve inch and Ped swearing on the b-side of the 12" single of Rage Hard, but it wasn't in your face. also, 86 was a time of colourful pop, overall. here came Frankie back with a single that had dowdy coloured fists on the cover, a not too much fun (yet still brilliant) song and a wish to be if not shades of grey then black and white. after four brilliant, iconic and in many instances groundbreaking promo videos, Frankie returned with a video that was effectively them stood on a bit of scaffolding, shouting and looking poignant.
perhaps it was always meant to be that Frankie would personify the idea of how the light which burns twice as bright burns half as long. they did indeed burn so very bright. rather, perhaps, that the fell and disintegrated than plodded on in mediocrity.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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