Reviews:
Sparks, Manchester Apollo, 22.06.2025

So..... I have been asked to report on the Sparks gig...

I set off in the rain at about 6pm, by bus and train and wended my weary way to The Apollo in Manchester. An easy enough journey from Farnworth via Bolton to Manchester Piccadilly. The trains weren't too full. It drizzled as I walked from Piccadilly railway station to the Apollo. It's been so hot these last few days that it was a blessed relief.

I got into the Apollo at about 7.20pm, had a quick look at the merch, bought nothing (sorry), then found a spot down the front right hand side, a couple of feet back from the barrier and fretted about the heat. There's no support act and Sparks are due on at 8.30pm.

The stage is bathed in a luxurious wash of blue light, and some people complained about it being too dark last night. The band (two guitars, bass and drums, the members having been their touring band for a few years now, though I only know one of them's name) are set up in a neat straight line on a raised dais, a little distance behind Ron's Roland keyboard, amusingly re-badged as Ronald. There's no getting away from who the stars of this show are. The rest of the stage is bare, as they don't clutter the floor space with monitors.

A group next to me played I-spy to fill up the next hour 'til Sparks took to the stage. They struggled for a while with something beginning with B, which I wrongly guessed was a blue denim beret worn by a bloke who looked astonishingly like Russell Mael did in 1974, to the point where I am convinced he's had surgery. He's an absolute vision from head to foot in pink. I'm rather envious of how skinny he is. I also didn't hear what the B-thing was. Oh well.

The security people look bored witless like they always do and stand under a notice that says 'if you come over the barrier again you will be ejected from the building'. That's me told. No crowd-surfing, then. A couple of brothers stood right next to me tell the security people that they have been following Sparks for 51 years now. They don't look anything like old enough.

My back aches. It's getting warmer in here as it fills up. And there's still another 50 minutes to go before Sparks are due on. I'm not going to attempt a run to the bar as I will just lose my prime spot and most likely have to go pee when Sparks are on. Security thoughtfully hand out cups of water. Maybe later.

Last night in Manchester - the first of two nights - was totally sold out. I didn't think that they would manage that for a moment and thought that their trying to play two nights was possibly going to be a big and costly mistake. I was totally wrong and I'm glad the world is 'getting them' at last. I think Ron is 77 now and Russell 74. Good for them that they are still at it, making hay while the sun shines. God knows how they have persevered all these years and now it's starting to pay off again with another burst of success.

They have - quite remarkably - kept their personal lives utterly invisible for the whole of their career.

At 8pm, it's getting very full. The PA music is a sort of low hum, only just above inaudible, as if they only have it on to warm the speakers up. It's as if they don't want to put any other music in people's minds. I think I can pick out some early Beatles and B52's and maybe a bit of Sparks themselves at various points, but I can't be sure.... I idly wonder, looking at the crowd, how many of them have invested in all of the 28 albums that Sparks have released. It's probably not a lot of them. There's a lot of the younger element in the crowd too. Great to see.

The 'mosh' area at the front centre of the stage is partly populated by the devoted hard-core fans who quite correctly make it their business to be right in front of their heroes. Sparks fans are normally hard to spot, but there they / we are. At various times, there probably weren’t that many of us. What does a Sparks fan look like? You wouldn't know, but for the t-shirts. There are nerdy guys and gals, deep thinkers, music buffs with great taste. There are regular guys and women, suitably fey-looking arty types, people with green hair that I am quite jealous of, girls with ‘Russell 2025’ hairdos. Take your pick. Whatever they look like, they are all here because they love this band. Everybody should like Sparks. All here to get their fix, which doesn't happen often enough, but far more than it used to in the 80's.

A couple of them look appreciatively for a moment as a solitary roadie, who wears what will turn out to be the same uniform as the Sparks backing musicians, comes on and tunes up a guitar, then the others, working from left to right. They don't get too excited about the beardy bloke who then wanders on to hit a couple of drums in a desultory manner and test a couple of microphones before sitting at Ron’s keyboard. 20 minutes to go. And then the guitars are again tuned as the guy comes back and works his way from right to left. Bottles of water are placed round the stage. That's entertainment.

A few more minutes pass. The house lights suddenly went down. Deafening cheer. Searchlights swayed and rolled from every point around the perimeter of the stage. The wall of square frames to the rear and sides of the stage light up like neon at the edges and create dancing, moving synchronised patterns. Visually striking. A fanfare played loudly. There could be no possible doubt at all that the band were about to come onstage. Sparks have never done things by halves. This was not just any old big introduction. The young guns bounded onto the stage and took up their positions and readied their instruments.

A moment later, with the fanfare still blaring, Ron Mael walked very slowly from stage left to his keyboard. The crowd went MAD. This is the same man that made John Lennon nudge Yoko Ono in 1974, saying, 'Oh look, Hitler's on the telly'. A moment that very few who saw it could have forgotten. John Lennon was wrong about Hitler being on the telly as Ron’s look was inspired by Charlie Chaplin. The crowd volume only increased as Russell Mael sauntered on, resplendent in a brightly coloured floral three-piece suit. I clocked his tan shoes, as I wear a pair similar to those onstage (and occasionally to Tesco).

After standing still for a moment, soaking up the warm welcome, Russell asked 'So May We Start?' a cue for the excellent song of the same name. Coming from the soundtrack of their eccentric film Annette, it’s a very strong starter, with a good pace and displays the whole range of Sparks’ wares, from chugging rock to amusingly pretentious cod opera. It’s perfect. The classy stage set just lends itself to the drama of the music.

Do Things My Own Way from their new album MAD is up next and Russell continues to stalk the stage, as he will all night. He struts and poses, as only he can. At one point, he leans towards Ron, shaking his microphone menacingly, in time to the strong insistent beat. The music is bang up to date. Sparks don’t stand still. Many have criticised their new album, saying they don’t get some of the songs. The Sparks way has always been to make music to challenge themselves and their audience and never ever to just do more of the same.

Ron – much less ‘Hitler from the telly’ than benevolent Grandfather these days – sits at his keyboard and hardly ever reacts to what is going on around him. It is his thing, you see, to act almost mute and to make eye contact with audience members momentarily then quickly glance away. Pure showmanship. At all times, a spotlight is trained on Ron's face from stage left. This man is LOVED and we SHALL be able to see him.

Reinforcements, a very deep cut from their 1974 Propaganda album, follows. I let out an involuntary whoop. I have avoided reading the set list for the shows and have only watched a couple of live videos, as I wanted to be surprised and shocked on the night. The band do a joyous rendition of this quirky offbeat song and it’s plain to see that they are having the best time.

Security ignore the phone cameras pointed at the band. It’s a futile exercise these days to try to stop an audience filming.

Russell starts to announce the next song, Academy Award Performance and looks momentarily thrown when Ron signals discreetly to him that he is leaving the stage. Russell engages the audience during this unscheduled interruption and asks if anyone knows a Georgio Moroder joke? The joke eventually being that Georgio Moroder told them that they needed a hit on the album they were working on with him. Sparks have had an interestingly on / off relationship with the hit parade over the years. Mainly off and that’s not their fault. All the time Russell is wisecracking to the crowd, he is watching anxiously for Ron's return. Russell asks the crowd if they have worked out where Ron has gone. Is it shopping, a tour of Manchester nightlife or a bathroom break? I am seriously wondering if Ron has suddenly been taken ill, and this absence goes on for a couple of minutes. It fortunately turns out that Ron is all good and didn’t need the bathroom at all, but he had just gone offstage to get his faulty in-ear monitors replaced. Phew.

That done, they burst into an impeccable version of the largely synth-driven Academy Award Performance from their 1979 Number One In Heaven album. Another really unexpected deep cut. I'm particularly impressed by the drums on this. The stage lights work wonders too. This is an unbelievably strong stage presentation.

Sparks must have read my mind about my dream set list, as they then play Goofing Off from their Introducing Sparks album. A song I never ever thought I would hear them play on a stage. For those who don’t know it, it’s the kind of Slow-Greek-wedding-dance song that seems to speed up until it’s just frantic and people fall over. A perfect hymn to the weekend – the lyrics are among Ron’s best: “We’ve got two days to try to forget a week of crap and crud. And we’ve got two days, so get over here. We’re gonna goof off good.” I am thrilled by the accuracy of the guitar solo in the middle of the song.

Russell introduces Beat The Clock and the audience lap it up. Sparks have had a number of hits over their career, whether people know them all or not. This is one of the instantly recognisable hits. The mosh area is bouncing.

The pace slows down with the immaculate slowie, Please Don't Fuck Up My World, from their A Steady Drip Drip Drip album. Russell introduces the song that you won’t hear on the radio, by saying that the world is in a bit of a mess right now. It was rather timely because Donald Trump had that very day ordered the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. Sparks have never been a particularly political band, who make great statements about what politicians are up to, but this is bang on. A girl off to the left of me is waving her arms side to side in time with Russell and keeps nearly hitting me in the face. A good time is had by all.

Another one from the new album, Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab. On listening to the album, I felt that this was perhaps a rather silly song (Sparks do those really well), but on a concert stage, with those prominent keyboards, it’s simply dramatic. Still silly, possibly, but still dramatic. Russell continues to stalk the stage as if he is thirty years younger than he is.

He takes a break and we are treated to Ron Mael taking centre stage to hesitantly vocalise (you can’t really say sing) their epic goofball song, Suburban Homeboy, from 2001’s ground-breaking L’il Beethoven album, accompanied by his pre-programmed keyboard and the rest of the band. Russell stays offstage until he returns to join in on the final chorus. It is received like an anthem. I guess it is.

The lyrics are just hysterical.
“I am a suburban homeboy with a suburban ho right by my side.
I am a suburban homeboy and I say yo' dog to my detailing guy
I bought me cornrows on Amazon. I started listening to Farrakhan
My caddy and me he looks just like Jay-Z and I'm a suburban homeboy.”

The band go straight into All You Ever Think About Is Sex from 1983’s Sparks In Outer Space album. The band play a really solid version of the song. To a lot of us Brits, it’s a bit of a deep cut, as the album made little or no impression over here on release. A bit criminal really, as the songs on that album were easily up to the same standard as most of their other more successful albums. The stage is utterly bathed in red light and Russell’s cavorting continues.

Drowned In A Sea Of Tears, from MAD follows. It’s a deliberately over-wrought ballad of sorts and Russell wrings every ounce of emotion on the choruses. His distinctive falsetto has not diminished after all these years. His tone has maybe thickened slightly, but he has astonishingly lost none of his range at all. He has said that he puts this down to the fact that Sparks are constantly working on recordings when not touring, so his voice is well exercised.

JanSport Backpack, from MAD, is another of what I tend to think of as one of Sparks’ sillier songs. It’s said to have come about from a chance sighting of a view of the receding backs of a number of girls wearing backpacks. Ron cleverly turned the chance sighting into a song about love lost. Whether I think it’s ‘silly’ or not, the crowd in Manchester adore it. They seem really familiar with the new album, which seems to be selling really well.

Then Sparks bring out some of their big guns: Music That You Can Dance To, from the album of the same name released in 1986, was not a particularly big hit over here, but the crowd quite rightly adore it. It’s a song that has to be impossible not to move to. It throws in a number of well-worn disco clichés and they don’t really feel like chiches. You never know when Sparks are serious or when they are parodying something. And they do it so well.

The pace set, we are then treated to the 1994 hit song, When Do I Get To Sing My Way? Everyone knows this one. It is just superb. Russell waves as he sings “They’ll introduce me, hello, hello”. The crowd wave back. All the song renditions are pleasingly quite accurate.

The Number One Song In Heaven starts their victory lap. We get the single version, rather than the full length drama of the album track. No-one misses the first half of the song. This was a massive hit back in the day and Manchester is overjoyed to hear it. It’s definitely one of those moments when you feel that you’re in the presence of something special, which surely is what music is all about? And Ron does his dance spot...

It's obvious that Sparks are not going to ever be able to play a live show that doesn't include a rendition of This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us and the reception it gets when they play it is totally predictable. This is the song that introduced many to Sparks, and remains the song they will always be best known for. Some people will have come along this evening and would maybe have only been able to say that they knew this song by them, until other songs from the set sharply reminded them that Sparks are such a massive distance away from being one hit wonders. The group have never turned in a lacklustre performance of this song and seem eternally grateful for their success with it.

To round off an evening of astonishing dips into their back catalogue, they reach all the way back to their second album, released in 1973. Whippings And Apologies is full of the out and out gonzoid guitar virtuoso hysterics of the kind that Sparks themselves rebelled against in the late 1970's.

Lord Have Mercy, from their MAD album, brings us right up to date. It's a slow singalong, a bit of a rhyming word game, with a whistling chorus on the album. It ends with a mega guitar solo, so the brothers have softened their old attitude towards guitars.

The audience are not going to let Sparks go home without two final songs and we are treated to The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte from 2023, which gets the appropriate response and All That, which was the opening track from 2020’s A Steady Drip Drip Drip album.

Their backing band has been absolutely exemplary this evening. There's been nothing at all from the band's long and difficult career that they have not been able to reproduce flawlessly. I am in awe.

One thing Sparks are not good at is getting a crowd to stop their standing ovation at the end of their show. Every time I have seen them, it's been the same. Every time I see them, they seem to get even better than the last time. The applause is absolutely deserved. The crowd share the love with the Mael brothers and they'd still be doing it an hour later if Russell didn't hush them momentarily to express their profound gratitude for the Manchester audience's support and their reaction this evening. He hands his mic to Ron who gives a brief and hesitant, but moving thank you to everyone. You can hear a pin drop. A moment or two later they are gone.

Final photo © Sparks

As I walk back to Piccadilly railway station in the warm drizzle to catch the 23.01 to Bolton, I ponder for a moment on a few of the songs that they didn’t include in their show. A futile exercise. They didn’t need to resort to just playing their greatest hits to hold the crowd’s attention. They have 28 albums worth of songs to choose from. What Sparks have always done, as said, is turn up and do what they do and if the audience are slightly challenged by that, so be it. Not every great song was a single.

Until the next time.

Thanks to June for the setlist.
I didn't write all the songs down as I wanted to enjoy the show.

I write my reviews simply because I like writing.
My opinions are my own and not necessarily correct or even worth reading.

All original text and images on this site are © www.ianedmundson.co.uk

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