Erasure revels in synth-pop roots for new year

NEW YORK - Erasure a year ago released a Christmas album, but with the latest holiday season upon us, the duo's biggest surprise was not a Yuletide carol but a celebration of synth-pop's roots.

 

Performing before a sold-out and dance-sweaty crowd of 3,000 at New York's Terminal 5 club on Tuesday, singer Andy Bell announced that Erasure would play an old favorite for the first time in 20 years.

 

That song was a respectful cover of "Voulez-Vous" by Abba, who in the 1970s pioneered the synth-pop sound of instantly danceable keyboards that was embraced a decade later by chart-topping, mostly British acts such as Erasure, Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys.

 

Erasure devoted an entire EP to Abba renditions in 1992 at the pinnacle of the duo's fame. In New York, Bell and keyboardist Vince Clarke obliged the crowd -- most old enough to remember them when they started -- by performing a string of Erasure's own hits including "Oh L'Amour," "Chains of Love," "A Little Respect" and "Blue Savannah."

 

Erasure will play a second show at Terminal 5 for New Year's Eve, the final date of a four-month tour of North America and Europe in support of the duo's 16th studio album, "The Violet Flame," a collection of dance anthems with introspective ballads cast into the mix.

 

Despite the devotion in concert to old hits, Erasure's career has not been without experimentation, with Bell and Clarke in the late 1990s bringing in long synthesizer solos, Gospel singers and even -- to the dismay of synth-pop purists -- acoustic guitars.

 

Last year's "Snow Globe" was among the most unique for Erasure, as the duo created a synth-pop Christmas out of covers of traditional carols as well as original songs.

 

Sleeveless shirt, gold shorts

 

In an intriguing musical reference for an Abba disciple, Bell performed at Terminal 5 in sleeveless Joy Division shirt, a shout-out to the bleak Manchester rockers who were reborn with keyboards as New Order in 1980.

 

Bell also sported infinitesimal metallic gold shorts, showing off his body as he moved to the rhythm between two female dancers in giant kinky wigs. Clarke, in true synth-pop keyboardist decorum, kept to himself in the corner behind strobe lights.

 

Erasure's concert Wednesday will have an added dimension, besides the New Year's celebrations, as two members of the American synth-poppers Book of Love will reunite to perform an opening set.

 

Book of Love built a niche audience in the 1980s by touring with Depeche Mode and -- more significantly in retrospect -- broke taboos of the era by openly discussing the AIDS crisis in the dance-club hit "Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls." 

 

Erasure has a large gay following as Bell has long been open about his sexual orientation, even at a time when many other gay musicians stayed in the closet. 

 

More recently, Bell has spoken out about being HIV positive in an effort to build awareness about preventing the virus that leads to AIDS. — Agence France-Presse