A raft of singers in the 1980s left their bands and embarked on solo careers: Dennis DeYoung of Styx, Peter Cetera of Chicago and Steve Perry of Journey. Belinda Carlisle was one of the few women to make the leap, and she arguably had one of the most successful runs among her MTV-era peers.
Carlisle has over the years reunited with her original band the Go Go’s, taken a few forays outside of pop music (French standards, anyone?), and pondered almost retiring altogether.
But as she said on stage at The Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre in Peachtree City Saturday night for the opening date of her latest summer solo tour, her son James Duke Mason ran into songwriter extraordinaire and her long-time collaborator Diane Warren and placed her on the phone with Carlisle. Warren persuaded Carlisle to record a few new pop ditties she had written, and the result was this spring’s five-song EP “Kismet.”
She performed two cuts from that EP Saturday that blended well with the rest of the set: the bright, airy “Big Big Love” and the retro cool ditty “If U Go.”
Over a span of 20 songs and 90 minutes, Carlisle covered all her notable solo hits, giving “Mad About You” a more guitar-heavy sound and opening her No. 1 1987 hit ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth” with a lovely acapella segment before going whole hog with the band.
Carlisle, 64, wearing a sparkly dress, black top and no shoes as is her wont, moved with a spirited carefree vigor as if it were still 1982. At one point, she appeared to have communication issues with her drummer, who signaled the start of a backing track of a song before she had a chance to finish on-stage banter. And during the bridge of “Mad About You,” she literally said, “I have a lot to say about this song but I won’t say” in part because the backing track dictated her to keep going.
Anybody who has seen Carlisle live over the years knows that she isn’t always pitch perfect. Saturday was no exception. But her voice sounded consistently strong throughout, whether she was tackling some of her cherished solo hits like “Circle in the Sand” and “I Get Weak,” or underrated delights like “Do You Feel Like I Feel?” and “Fool for Love.”
She also expressed pride that she got to collaborate with some of the biggest names in rock, including Lindsey Buckingham and George Harrison, who provided a nice slide guitar solo on the recording of her 1989 hit “Leave a Light On,” which was a definite highlight of the night live.
Credit: RODNEY
Credit: RODNEY
Carlisle started her set at 7:45 p.m., about 45 minutes earlier than originally scheduled because the weather report indicated rain after 10 p.m. She ironically performed what she said was her favorite solo song she ever recorded “Summer Rain,” which did well in several countries worldwide but stalled at No. 30 on the top 40 chart stateside.
The Go Go’s as a group have only played a handful of times in Atlanta over the past 30 years, including a private concert at Centennial Olympic Park in 2013, a visit to Chastain in 2011, two stops at Center Stage in the mid-2000s and a pairing with the B-52s at Lakewood Amphitheatre in 2000. So fans had to make do with solo Carlisle last night giving love to that seminal band’s four biggest hits: “Head Over Heels,” “We Got the Beat,” “Vacation” and “Our Lips Are Sealed.”
Sure, the songs aren’t quite the same without her brethren Charlotte Caffey, Kathy Valentine, Gina Schock and Jane Wiedlin, but Carlisle and her band gave them all plenty of verve and power. The audience happily sang along.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
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