CONCERT PREVIEW
Howard Jones
With Marina V. 8 p.m. Aug. 16. $27.50 (advance) and $32 (day of show). Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.
When Howard Jones arrived in 1983 with “New Song,” a bubbly pop tune filled with springy synthesizers much brighter than what his New Wave brethren were contributing, most weren’t sure what to make of his sound.
For the next six years, Jones continued to enlighten with his sequencers and synthesizers that powered a string of hits including “What Is Love?,” “Life in One Day,” “Everlasting Love” and the enduring rainbow of a song, “Things Can Only Get Better.”
While radio play waned in the early ‘90s, the British singer/musician hasn’t stopped, whether it meant joining Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band for a roll around the country, teaming up for live shows with other ‘80s landmarks such as Culture Club and the Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, crafting the wildly ambitious electronic project “Engage,” which arrived in February, or working on music for “Eddie the Eagle,” the upcoming movie about Eddie Edwards, Great Britain’s first ski jumper to enter the Winter Olympics.
Jones, 60, will make his first appearance at Variety Playhouse on Sunday, and calls his three-piece electronic band “very modern.”
The affable, quick-to-laugh ’80s hero dialed in from his home in England last week to chat.
Q: You’re going to be in the States quite a bit this summer and fall.
A: All year, really. I've done two or three tours already this year. I've been committing myself to doing a lot of shows. I'm still up and running and functioning really well, so I should do it while I can.
Q: It looks like your set lists stay pretty true to the hits. Have these songs taken on a different meaning for you as you’ve gotten older?
A: Because we're constantly rejuvenating the way we play live, we bring in new elements and new sounds. You can't change the fundamental things of it, but for instance on "Things Can Only Get Better," I do that usually at the end of the set and then launch into the remix of the song (live), so it's something unexpected to the audience and shows that we try to give things a new twist. One of the things that the technology allows us to do is re-create organically what is on the record, and that sound is really in vogue now.
Q: How about the lyrics? Do they still resonate with you?
A: This is the great thing for me … I could envision myself being in the position where I didn't believe in the lyrics anymore, but that isn't the case because I still feel very happy about singing those songs. I totally still believe in them. "What Is Love?" is all about questioning love. "Things" is such a positive song about when things go horribly wrong, you can still create anew.
Q: You mentioned the electronic sound being in vogue now. Have you gotten into the whole EDM movement?
A: I follow what's going on and there's amazing things going on in electronic music. But I come from a songwriting and melodic background, and I'm still really doing that.
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