and so another gig to document. quite a good one, look you see, although the theme may well feel rather familiar. so yes, then, (somewhat) improbably i have managed to have the good fortune of seeing Holly Johnson once more, following reasonably recent ones in 2023 and 2025. considering that prior to that i had "only" seen him with full tilt Frankie Goes To Hollywood in 1987 (!), well, after a gap it seems i am seeing him frequently and all of a sudden during even numbered years too.
it was, perhaps surprisingly, not so that i intended to see him again this year. whilst i was aware of him playing the highly praised (and rightly so, but more later) Scarborough Open Air Theatre, well, with no car that is not an easy venue to get to. for a major coastal town it is not well serviced at all by trains. anyway, a good friend of mine who(m) had never seen Holly but was something of a fan put a deal on the table. if i were to get the tickets then he would drive us there and back. done.
maybe, somehow, i am not a "proper" fan of Holly (or Frankie) for not actively seeking a way to get to the gig of my own accord, but hey. life, you know. yes, of course, the moment i was there i was aware of what an act of folly it would have been not to have been there.
rather than a "support act" or "supporting acts" we had what was billed as "special guests". there is indeed a subtle difference. on the instance of seeing Frankie in 1987 (!) it was very much "special guests", since the mega selling Berlin were on first. for the previous two Holly gigs, well, classical support acts, as in relatively unknown singers or bands. to be fair both of them were rather good, or at the least (worst case) somewhat more agreeable than the curious lady at Adam Ant, who(m) did a song about space tampons and had tape (or plasters) over her (upper) lady bits.
first of the two (2) special guests was Heaven 17. of the entire line up, if i am honest, this would be the band that i was "least" interested in, but that does not mean i had no interest at all. well, they did lift their name from A Clockwork Orange, so it's not that i have an issue with them. it turned out that i knew more than the 2 (two) songs i thought was all i knew of them, with those being Fascist Groove Thang and of course Temptation.
honestly a rather excellent start to the evening. i mean, they were really good. don't wish to sound patronising or dismissive, but much of the joy of their set was exactly how comfortable they clearly were with doing their songs from the 80s. for clarification, you do get many musicians who (and this is not unreasonable) only want to do their new stuff, rather than what fans may wish for. i would consider it something amazing if i had written something that a crowd of people were shouting / singing back at you well north of 40 years later.
with such hefty line up i had thought that Heaven 17 would get 30 minutes, ABC 40 (or so) minutes and then Holly would do a 75 - 80 minute set. this was mostly based on the Suede and Manics joint tour that i shall save you yet more links from. not so, as both the bands who were not Holly had a decent 45 minutes each. that said Heaven 17 did do "a bit of padding", electing for a (really smart) extended 12" take on Temptation and, as displayed in the (poor) video above, a cover of Let's Dance off of David Bowie.
very much a band that wished to enthusiastically engage with the audience, making it all the more of a great set. bit of a "strange" moment, mind. the lead singer, Glenn, expressed dismay that their early appearances on Top Of The Pops were not on the internet, all due to Sir Jimmy happening to have been the host. referencing him, and indeed (not unfairly or in any way incorrectly) describing him as a "dirty b@st@rd" was an interesting thing to do in Scarborough, and it was rather curious for them to follow up that tirade with a song about a relationship between a 37 year old chap and a 17 year old girl.
bit of a brief break from the vibes (and i do promise Holly features eventually) for a "review" of sorts for anyone doing a kind of "is Scarborough open air theatre good" google thing. yes, mostly, but there are a couple of clauses. this is easily one of the loudest concerts i have ever attended, and that was awesome. whilst i did not drive, it was a breeze to get in and out of the place, and there's loads of parking available. it took no more than ten (10) minutes from leaving the venue to being in the car on our way home (hoo ha, hoo ha). yes, that is my forearm above, with the band thing i got for getting tickets in the standing area.
concentrating on the left hand side of the "composite" picture above, it was rather disappointing that they only hand ABC stuff on sale. for whatever reason (at a guess profit sharing) neither Holly nor Heaven 17 had supplied them with "merch". oh well. the rather bigger part of the sign is offering an upgrade to "rooftop VIP" for £30 a go. we asked the staff about and they said (relax) don't do it as it was a rip off. sorry for my poor narration, but here you go with that -
i am all too aware of how they try and "maximise income" (or fleece people) with concert tickets these days, be it "dynamic pricing" or charging more for the "golden circle" at the front. for the latter i did indeed indulge such for the 2025 variation of seeing Holly. this one, however, is just plain ridiculous. had one been fooled into purchasing this "upgrade" (and you can see some did), well, at best if you were in the 8 or 10 seats closest to the stage you would have a highly restricted view of the stage, and anyone not in those seats might as well have not bothered. if you are looking for a nice sit down at a table near a bar i would suggest what you are looking for is a pub or restaurant. so far as i am aware neither of such type of place would charge anything for you to enter, let alone an extra £30 on what you had already paid.
leaving that aside (yet do take heed of it if you are here doing research before going) and wow, what a venue. considering the costs of doing catering at a gig the food wasn't that badly priced. if you expect to pay a bit more, well, £12.50 for sausage and chips is what i went for. a pepperoni pizza was £16, which is likely half of what a regular one costs in London (innit). cans (!) of water were £2.50, representing the cheapest drink. famously i am not allowed alcohol on medical advice, but pints of beer / lager (i can recall seeing Budweiser) were £7.
returning to the music, then, and i was delighted to see that ABC were on the support. whereas no, i would not call (or consider) myself a "proper fan", they have done some truly brilliant music. even better was that i had hopes of them doing two specific songs and i got (at the least) one of them, for they opened with When Smokey Sings. alas no luck with the second i had hoped for, One Better World, but all the more excuse to (hopefully) see them again one day.
a very clear, palpable gasp of admiration swept the crowd as Martin Fry took to the stage. you could hear, and indeed me and my friend engaged the same, everyone commenting how he has "really looked after himself". well, he always one really handsome chap, but still (or all the same) it is decidedly so that he has done that very English way of doing things thing of becoming even more elegantly handsome as time has gone by. playing in the background were curated highlights from some of their videos, which was lovely as i was in my MTV t-shirt. i liked the statement that was being made in a possibly tacit way, that the band have aged but they own the age.
overall, and much like Heaven 17, a most agreeable set that was highly enjoyable. if i were to be as honest as i strive to be here, i might have marginally enjoyed the Heaven 17 set more purely (and only)because it, in the moment, took me by surprise as to just how familiar i actually was with their songs. also yes they did a Bowie, and no i am not precious about covers. with ABC, well, very much more of a "known quantity". easily i am more familiar with their songs, and there was never any doubt that they would deliver a class set.
yes, as i guessed (or rather hoped) Holly did indeed do Penny Arcade. he has never made it a secret that he is really fond of it, and clearly frustrated it didn't get "out there" to a bigger audience. perhaps it would be fair to say he is quite cross that it did not, as all of the audience got told off by him for us not buying the Dreams That Money Can't Buy album which it is from. a little harsh, since i have the cassette (actual) of it here, but i get his point. he also did This Was Me from the Everbody's Talking About Jamie soundtrack, which is a really really good song that flew under the radar. likely as it was released in or around 2021, when we were all distracted by the plague thing.
go on, then, however many paragraphs in (a few), finally some overt Holly in a post which is ostensibly about Holly. the star of the show, of course, and very much the main man. quite the buzz, to state the obvious, when he took to the stage. well, why exactly would people be there if they didn't dearly love Holly? yet i do recall the lad who went to The Stone Roses at Heaton Park purely as Plan B was on the support bill, and all them people in Scotland who went to see Suede just to shout "you effete southern w@nkers" at them the whole show.
taking as a given this is the 4th time (in total) i have seen him, it was indeed very agreeable that for the 3rd time of such he opened with Warriors Of The Wasteland, the penultimate single off of Frankie from their final album, and a sign that the end was in sight when it failed to make the top ten. lousy video for it didn't help. but by all accounts the band really weren't interested in being in the same room as each other by that point.
as i mentioned earlier i, not unreasonably, assumed this might (possibly) have been a shorter set. well, it was really one awesome line up, and time is finite with curfews and that. my assumption was possibly all seven (7) Frankie singles (since Warriors got dropped for the last gig), all 4 (four) singles from his magnificent Blast album, the two famous Frankie covers (Born To Run and War), with possibly one of his favourites, likely Penny Arcade thrown in. we got that, and some more too. result.
video? of course. going to do this radically out of sequence, alas, but hey, my (last time i looked) blog. first up then, and this kind of fits in with the last paragraph, the final single from Frankie, which Holly introduced as being Frankie's last stand, Watching The Wildlife.
regular (or frequent) readers here shall know full well my proclivity for sentimental hygiene, yet still to this day i get sad whenever i heard Watching The Wildlife end. each and every time i hear the song fade away feels like Frankie Goes To Hollywood splitting up again. soft touch, yes, i know.
in respect of speaks (or "banter") with the crowd, well, Holly was his usual loveable, how on earth does he get away with it filter free self, really. perhaps not as much chatting about cottaging or frotting or similar, maybe sensing it was a vaguely family area he was in. still, he was delighted when he saw some dude was stood at the end of the stage doing all of the songs in sign language. which was, to be honest, a lovely thing to see. Holly asked him if he could do sign language for ejaculation, he could, he did and Holly was most pleased with it, pointing out it would be important later.
the last song of the set, as has now been the case on the three (3) solo shows i have seen, was The Power Of Love, which he says is the one song he wants to be remembered for. indeed i did film it, but on playing it back there's more the sound of a nearby conversation than Holly singing, sorry. instead, then, above is the penultimate song from the show, and the one i (apologies to him) would suggest is the one he shall always be remembered for, Relax.
by the way, no, i do not care what your lifestyle preference (or choice) is, sexually or otherwise - the chap dancing in the video on the back screen thing is f*****g hot. and i doubt that there's anything more i could write of Relax that i have not done in the last twenty (!) or so years here. except, perhaps, that there are an extraordinary number of people around the world who associate the song with moi, which is most sincerely flattering.
with regards (or respect) to the Frankie elements of the set, i guess (oddly) right, yet there was one addition. taking me by (most pleasant) surprise was the performance of Wish (The Lads Were Here) from the Welcome To The Pleasuredome album.
on to the Holly Johnson solo songs, then, and once more (look at me showing off) i did indeed get the content mostly right. a bit disappointing that Heaven's Here noticeably fell flat with large chunks of the audience (via close ups on the big screen) - sure, not his greatest song but still a decent one.
my favourite Holly solo song - and so the one i shall (obviously) argue is his finest - remains Love Train, which of course got an airing. i kind of promised myself no, i am not going to film it, just rather enjoy it, but here we are. at the least i just took in every moment of Two Tribes.
something that never occurred to me is that there are fans of Holly solo and that's it. my friend is indeed one of them, for he didn't care about Frankie but loved Holly's solo stuff. there are one or two others i am aware of that this is true for. normally it's a bit of a "devout yet diminishing" audience when a singer leaves a really big band. the only three (3) singers i can think of (and there are likely more) who(m) went on to get an even bigger audience after leaving a huge band are Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and of course George Michael.
for some reason it feels like everyone in the UK but moi believes Americanos to be Holly's greatest solo single. this is (very much) true of my friend, who wanted to go to the gig specifically to hear him do it. whereas no, it is not bad, i do (kind of) feel like it's a bit of throwaway fluff pop, and was (slightly) disappointing after Love Train promised some really mind-blowing pop. still, for those keen on it, here you go, the last bit of video i am sharing from the gig.
was there any songs i would have liked to hear? overwhelmingly (as an absolute) i am happy to hear anything he cares to do, thanks. if pressed (which i am not) then i would suggest that some of the other six (6) songs on Blast which weren't singles appear to have been discarded. off the top of my head two of them, Perfume and in particular Deep In Love, are great, fun pop songs. but, if he doesn't feel like doing them, or doesn't feel like the audience would dig them, so be it.
right, the inevitable (and very standard) "will i see Holly again" question. of course i would very much like to, but that depends entirely on him deciding to do more gigs and it being possible for me to get to where he is playing. if it's not feasible or possible, well, ok, i can live with the fact that i have now seen him three (3) more times further than i had ever expected to.
indeed i did share some of these videos and pictures with friends and family around the world. for some reason Dad (unexpectedly) has taken quite a shine to the boots (or exaggerated shoes) Holly has on, and is actively seeking a pair for himself. when asked if he felt the same about the dapper leather shorts his answer amounted to "no", but with rather stronger language.
to be stolen or bought, to be stolen or bought.
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