Joe Jackson crashes the New Wave into SPAC, his charisma still intact

by Steve Webb, The Knickerbocker News, August 2, 1980

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center got its first taste of rock’s New Wave this week as British singer Joe Jackson performed in front of 3,626 fans.

Just as major concert venues such as SPAC tend toward more conservative or at least traditional rock events, so has the young crop of rock bands and singers confined themselves to the intimacy of showcase clubs, where their by-necessity-brief sets are accepted, and the atmosphere is conducive to pogo dancing and close artist-audience contact.

Jackson’s audience Thursday, after two 500-person shows in the Capital District over the last 15 months, has swelled beyond that intimacy, but it is to the center’s and the singer’s credit that his live charisma didn’t get lost in the crowd. In particular, Jackson worked harder than at his last area appearance, in Union College’s Memorial Chapel in Schenectady, and the sound during his and opening act Willie Nile’s set was a perfect complement of clarity and jolt.

The set was short, less than 1 1/2 hours, and it would probably be a good idea in the future for SPAC to present three bands, possibly including local talent, when it books New Wave in the future.

Jackson, as most pop music fans of any stripe know, isn’t exactly the boldest exponent of the punk generation. His “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” became a Top 40 hit, and his two albums linger between intense rock and soft pop, more often the latter.

His specific purpose was to expose his audience to new material, and the crowd heard eight cuts either on a current British single (a cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come”) or an album he is recording. The new stuff sounds fine, from the non-love song “Biology” (“Nothing to do with our hearts; Nothing to do with our heads. It’s just B-I-O-L-O-G-Y you see”) to a piece called “Crime Doesn’t Pay” which he introduced as, “a true story based on my realization I had reached that if I wasn’t doing this, whatever I’d be doing certainly wouldn’t be legal.”

And Jackson is a much more explosive performer live. His first-rate backing group (guitar, bass, drums) takes much of the soft focus away from his songs, and he sings as if he has to reach the back row of the theater without benefit of microphone.

He opened the set on piano, playing and singing a song about romantic triangles with drum accompaniment. Although he returned to the piano during parts of two other songs, he sang the rest of the time, hanging from his mike or gripping his face or stomping across the stage with a bottle of beer in hand.

The highlights included the second cut, title song of his second album “I’m the Man,” the aforementioned new songs, the title cut to his debut album “Look Sharp,” a new social commentary song called “Fits” and a slightly different-rhythmed version of “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”

Jackson still needs to translate some of his stage charisma onto his records. He is by no means a perfect performer on stage, but he brings his songs a higher degree of importance with his assured, sometimes manic delivery.

Willie Nile, in his opening set, fared much better in the Saratoga amphitheater than in Tanglewood’s Music Shed. The sound was much better and the billing more compatible to his crisp, literate version of rock ‘n’ roll.

Just as important, however, was that Nile — who has been physically ailing in his two last area appearances — seemed relaxed and a good deal more quick-witted. His set had some similarities with Tanglewood and June 12 at J.B. Scott’s, but his remarks had more spontaneity, and he added a couple of different songs.

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