Totally Tubular Fest
The Fox Theater, Oakland
June 27, 2024
Photos by Raymond Ahner
Over the last few years there has been an upswing in festivals catering to the music of the 1980s. Arguably the highest profile is Pasadena’s Cruel World Festival, which seemed to have given way to last year’s Darker Waves Festival in Huntington Beach. And then of course there’s the annual Lost 80s Live, which seemingly always plays at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga. But what if you’re a fan of new wave but hate being outside? Well that was where Totally Tubular Fest steps in: featuring a bill of eight bands, it’s playing almost exclusively indoor venues, and here in the Bay Area it made a stop at The Fox Theater in Oakland.
Opening the evening was Eddie Muñoz of The Plimsouls, a band that I was completely unfamiliar with. Unfortunately their material didn’t particularly blow me away, and the four-song set felt far too short with the band feeling like they were finally hitting their stride once they finished their last song. If you’ve read any of my past reviews, you know that I have an admiration and reverence for music from the 1980s, but I feel that if it hadn’t had been for their song “A Million Miles Away” being featured in the song Valley Girl then nobody would remember this band, and the live set by Muñoz and his band proved that to me.
On second was Tommy Tutone, another one-hit wonder band. And again, a band whose live set did little to impress me. It felt like most of the crowd was just waiting for them to play “867-5309/Jenny,” and just like Eddie Muñoz before them, they saved it to the very end, subjecting the crowd to five songs before it of varying quality. While their set was overall more enjoyable than the one before it, it still washed over me and by the time the band left the stage they had left barely any impression on me to speak of.
Things started to pick up a bit when Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow hit the stage. This isn’t the classic lineup of the band, with only singer Annabella Lwin remaining, but the band brought an intensity to their set that felt like a shot of adrenalin after the first two acts. They played a good number from the second Bow Wow Wow album When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going, with the drummer in particular never letting up. Much like the two sets before, Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow closed with “I Want Candy,” which was arguably the biggest song played so far that evening.
Unfortunately things took another nosedive once The Tubes took the stage. For as little as I felt about the first two bands that played, I felt even less about their set. Originally Wang Chung was supposed to play, and it seemed like The Tubes only got added to the bill because they’re based out of San Francisco. It blew my mind that this band was put higher on the bill than Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow, when they had at least one song that was memorable.
The next band to take the stage was Men Without Hats, who completely subverted expectations and actually opened their set with their big hit, “The Safety Dance.” From there the band tore through the rest of their set, frontman Ivan Doroschuk having the most energy of anyone onstage so far. I had seen the band once before years ago, and I felt the same way then as I did watching their set at The Fox: nearly any of their songs could have been their “big hit,” it just happened to have been “The Safety Dance.” For as great as their set was though (and it truly was the best thus far in the evening), the entire thing ended in an anti-climax with the band playing “The Safety Dance” for a second time to close out their set. It felt like a wasted opportunity to continue to play stellar material that most of the audience wasn’t familiar with. Oh well.
Things continued to stay on track with Modern English taking the stage next. A band that I’ve seen performing a headlining set, I was curious what they would do given a shorter time slot. So color me surprised when the band opened their set with a one-two punch of “Gathering Dust” and “Someone’s Calling,” two songs that show off the band’s early post-punk roots. Most of the crowd around me seemed put off, apparently not being familiar with the band’s material outside of “I’ll Melt With You,” a song that sounds nothing like anything else on their first two records. The middle of the band’s set was dedicated to songs from their most recent album, this year’s 1 2 3 4, with their set closing with their biggest hit. This was the standout set of the entire evening for me, and I loved that the band seemingly relished in showing the audience that there was more depth to their music than the one big hit that everyone knows.
The penultimate performer of the evening was Tom Bailey, who came to prominence as the driving creative force of the band Thompson Twins. His stage setup and live band was impressive, and the set saw Bailey and company playing all of the biggest hits of his previous band. The biggest surprise for me came when he played Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” with the sound updated to match his new wave sound. Given the fact that Thompson Twins broke up over three decades ago, this performance was the closest that the audience would get to see these songs performed live.
Closing out the evening was Thomas Dolby, a musician that I have a lot of respect for and had never seen live. So to say that his set was a letdown is a bit of an understatement. Given forty minutes he performed just six songs, two of which were covers: “Blue Monday” by New Order and “‘Heroes'” by David Bowie. The latter of the two didn’t even see Dolby singing, instead playing synths while the vocal take from the original song played over the venue’s PA. The entire thing felt like one long anti-climax, which was disappointing due to both how long I’d wanted to see him live but also paired with the rest of the band that had performed beforehand.
Overall would I call the Totally Tubular Festival a success? Eh, kind of. I think that its biggest issue was the length of it. I think that scaling it down to only four or five bands would help trim the fat and ensure that every band performing not only could have longer sets but also that there would just be better bands on a given touring bill. I understand that for some of these bands this is the only viable option for them to tour anymore, but given how rushed and unmemorable nearly half of the sets throughout the evening were, it begs the question of if they even should be touring anymore if we’re going to be given bland performances? For the other half of the acts that played, I have no notes other than I’m glad to have gotten some artists that I truly love off of my bucket list. If Totally Tubular Fest comes back around in 2025, I can only hope that it truly lives up to its name.
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