Erasure World Be Gone Tour

Oh L’Amour, What’s a boy in love supposed to do? Go to the Erasure Concert!

Erasure came back to Chicago and performed at the Chicago Theater on July 27 & 28. We got tickets to see them on the 27th and it was a blast!

I’ve been following Erasure since high school in 1987 and see them in concert numerous times and each one has been entertaining and fun. This concert was filled with popular songs from their previous albums and a few from their new album “World be Gone”. The mix of Andy Bell’s showmanship and Vince Clarke’s musical beats made this show memorable.

The evening started with an opening duo Reed & Caroline. Not the best opening show, but nonetheless we were excited to see Erasure. For the Violet Flame Tour we had seats in the balcony, so I decided to get seats on the ground floor. I got seat at row M, but didn’t realize that the seating started with double letters, so we were a little far back than I thought we would be. They were OK seats, but I think we would have had better viewing if we were in the balcony.

The stage is set, three lighted boxed on stage, Andy comes out from the middle box and the light show begins. You hear the introduction to Oh L’Amour and the crowd roars. You see Vince on top of the middle box surrounded by his synths and guitar. Its hard to see him, but you know he’s there. The two backup singers are in the side boxes and the energy is pumped up and the house is full of singing, screaming and dancing.

They played old favorites like the popular “Sometimes” and “Who Needs Love Like That”, as well as others from the Innocents album “Ship of Fools” and “Phantom Bride”. I was happy that they performed a lot of my favorites such as “Blue Savannah” and “Drama!” from their Wild album. Staples like “Stop!” and “Always” was a crowd pleaser as well. They paid homage to Blonde and performed “Atomic”. Where we were it was hard to hear the conversations that Andy was having with the crowd, but we got the gist of it when he spoke.

The evening ending with their encore “A Little Respect” and this was the time we got to see Vince clearly. He played his guitar as Andy sang and the crowd loved it.

It was a fun night and I hope that they produce another album soon so we can see them perform again. You can tell that Andy loves to perform, they have been entertaining the fans for over 30 years and he is still as he was when I first saw him live during their Wild! Tour. As usual the outfits are some that you have never seen before and Andy did not disappoint this time. At one point he shed all his clothes until he was down to a body suit that looked like he was tattooed all over.

As long as Erasure continues to make new albums and tours, I will continue to be a fan!