IMAGE CREDIT: Mel Hayes Music
Frankie Says, live@Castle Inn, Pevensey Bay, Saturday 25 February
The music of the eighties is an acquired taste, but without question, as we witness Marc Almond playing out the Andrew Marr Show this morning (Sunday 26 February), it could be argued that as well as waving goodbye, we are saying hello again to an era that is being re-evaluated. Perhaps like wine some of the sounds are maturing with age.—Bay Life, 26 February 2017
Take away the backdrop of those videos with Rio dancing on the sand and the tunes still stand up, representative of an age of great change. The band, Frankie Says, at the Castle Inn Live, last night (Saturday 25 February), represented that spirit well.
From the sixties to Rag n Bone Man there was a period in between somewhere in which people identified that the times they were a changing, and that period was the eighties. There is even an argument that you can find the first moves towards Brexit in the Sounds of the Eighties if you listen hard enough.
At Live Aid we remember Queen, but we also remember David Bowie, with perhaps the seminal version of Heroes that is still a soundtrack to our lives now. No-one could argue, in spite of the fact that Bowie was a child of the sixties, that his music did not shift and shine a light on the changing times in which we live.
Capturing that sound and style and the groove that the music of the eighties represents, is more difficult to do honestly for any band than is immediately obvious. So easy for any band to pay tribute, but acts can easily become pantomime.
What is good about Frankie Says is the honesty and the fact that as well as believing in the music, they can play the sounds from inside the groove.
From the opening number, Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, it was obvious that like the BBC we were in for a night of education and well as entertainment.
Wiry lead singer, Karl Jenner, who looks a lean 23, but we were reliably informed is in fact 34, stabbed at the audience as he got the first set off the ground.
His excitement, energy and enthusiasm, as well as a voice that is well pitched to the sounds of the eighties, connected with the small crowd that was gathered at the Castle Inn from the moment that he took to the ad hoc stage inside the pub. Frankie Says works because the music is well worked out, the band tight and musically crafted with skill.
As we moved through the eighties in a nicely chosen playlist, we got to 1987 and a version of Faith by George Michael, which for me was both an honest rendition and an offer of something that respected George Michael and the eighties with one of the finest moments.
Throughout, Karl Jenner kept stabbing to the audience like a tuning fork, in perfect time with the eighties, in the groove throughout, backed by the very able band.
Nice to see the generations represented as well in the Saturday Night Live crowd at the Castle Inn. Men in their sixties proudly upright in neatly buttoned shirts, with a twist of Ben Sherman, two couples getting into the groove dancing at the front, tables with a good knot of Beachlanders and people from out of town, along with the regular Saturday Night Live crowd. Interesting to see families that bridged the generations all out together smiling, nodding their heads in time to the conversation across the generations..
The Castle Inn Live Entertainments Saturday Night is perhaps an expression of the best atmosphere and community strength of the small community of Pevensey Bay.
Something to do with celebration and recognition of the individual and collective spirit of the place, no better way to do that than in the company of a band that could turn on, tune in and keep the Faith with George Michael. The Castle Inn Public House in Pevensey Bay can trace roots back in history as a public house, and we assume, a live music venue something like 300 years.
Frankie Says is a good band tuned into the eighties in a way that is just right for the occasion. The band is a credit to the Mel Hayes management team, that puts on a series of local acts that all appear to be of the same standard and calibre.
A good night, maybe not Frankie Goes to Hollywood, more Frankie Goes to Ethel Wood, but anyone that knows the history and legacy of local community activist Ethel Wood will see a sense of connection in the values that she promoted and the continuation of those community values in events like Saturday Night Live at the Castle Inn.
Outside the music carried and held in the air shaped into some kind of musical focal point.
In the post-truth, pre-Brexit world of Donald Trump and in the lee of the British by-elections that may have shifted 80 years of history, it is still possible, to the well timed sound and strains of Tainted Love, still, to feel part of a small community celebration of some description.
They cranked up into Bowie and Let’s Dance. Perhaps in spite of the times in which we live, we can still be heroes, just for one day.
Credit to the Castle Inn staff for putting on another good Saturday Night Live at the Castle Inn, to the Mel Hayes Management team and to Frankie Says for putting on a good night and capturing well, with honesty, the spirit of the Eighties.
Simon Montgomery
