An iconic band, an iconic venue: The Human League play Dreamland, Margate, on Friday 21 July 2023.
The Human League: a band best known for a song they never wanted to release as a single but that went on to become the biggest seller of 1981.
A spokesperson says: “‘Don’t You Want Me’, a clever duet examining the death of a love affair from both perspectives, also proved once and for all that the best Christmas number ones aren’t about Christmas at all.
“Over forty years later, The Human League continue to make and share electronic music, with their songs being said to stir up memories but, unlike some of the 80s nostalgia tours doing the rounds, without being tarnished by retro cheesiness.”
The original line-up of Joanne Catherall, Phil Oakey and Susan Ann Sulley will be playing the Scenic Stage at Dreamland, Margate, on 21 July.
The spokesperson for the band continues: “There has always been a pleasing straightforwardness, a Dadaist blankness, to the League: what you see is what you get, prime numbers in a world of complex equations. Even Oakey’s handsome Yorkshire accent was never modified to a mid-Atlantic drawl for the sake of radio digestibility and it’s notable that the band never left their hometown of Sheffield for the lure of London.
“Notable, too, is that the League never broke up or quit the music scene. Following their 1981 platinum selling Dare, they released a pioneering album of remixes, Love and Dancing, along with two fantastic singles – the meta-Motown “Mirror Man” and the juicy, jubilant “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” – before the successor album, Hysteria, in 1984. “
The group continued to be a successful singles act with hits such as “Louise” and “Life On Your Own”. They often evoked the golden age of pop with spoken narrative (“When we were apart, I was human too…”) and self-aware personal touches that frequently broke the fourth wall (“This is Phil talking…”).
There was also “The Lebanon”, which to Oakey’s perverse pride recently won the BBC Radio 1 Worst Lyric Of All Time poll for the couplet “And where there used to be some shops/Is where the snipers sometimes hide”.
Later the band hooked up with R&B producers and former Prince acolytes Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, whose Flyte Tyme team had recently scored big with Janet Jackson’s album Nasty.
The duo wrote another both-sides-of-the-story duet, “Human”, for the League and the song was deemed a transatlantic smash.
For many fans, “Tell Me When?”, a top ten hit from the 1995 album Octopus, was said to have marked a comeback for the band, but there are some of the band’s followers that would argue that the League never went away.
Today the band are planning a tenth studio album.
Tickets for THE HUMAN LEAGUE & MARC ALMOND - MARGATE – Dreamland show are available from:
Friday 21 July 2023
MARGATE – Dreamland, Scenic Stage
Website – https://link.dice.fm/Ye1b480a2f7e
Gates open – 6.00pm / Start Time - 7.00pm
Tickets - £35 General Admission Standing / VIP Tickets - £55 + booking fee
VIP Tickets include:
Please note, food and drink will be charged separately at the event and are not included with this ticket.
TICKETS ARE ON SALE FROM FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER.
For more information on THE HUMAN LEAGUE, please click onto the following website / social media links below:
Website – https://www.thehumanleague.co.uk/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thehumanleague
Twitter – https://twitter.com/humanleaguehq
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/humanleaguehq/
You Tube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/thehumanleague
Marc Almond
The Human League