Review Tuesday: TEARS FOR FEARS & GARBAGE at Jones Beach Theater, June 25, 2022

Let's rewind to last November when I got a notification from Groupon that they had tickets t see Tears for Fears and Garbage playing at the Jones Beach Theater. Tear for Fears? They're still around? Okay... why not? 

 

TEARS FOR FEARS & GARBAGE

at Jones Beach Theater, June 25, 2022

 

Garbage

I can't recall if I did or did not review the most recent album from Garbage. I have liked the band ever since the first time I heard the song VOW play on the radio. However, as time has passed. Shirley has been writing songs with political leanings. I wouldn't care if the music didn't suffer, but it has. This last album was much less repellent than the a couple of the previous ones, it was still okay at best. That aside, we try to see Garbage everytime they come to town. This time as the opener for Tears for Fears and $25 tixx, we couldn't resist.  

Setlist:

1. Automatic Systematic Habit
2. No Gods No Masters
3. Stupid Girl
4. Special
5. Wicked Ways (with Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”)
6. Queer
7. The World Is Not Enough
8. Wolves
9. Only Happy When It Rains
10. Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)
11. Push It
12. You Look So Fine (with Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”)

The band came out at 7:35 PM, and did a mostly fine job with their set (which seems to have been pretty standard for this tour). Shirley, looking like an extra from a cantina scene from Star Wars, took stage time to yell at the crowd for having beach balls. I picture yelling at kids to keep off her law too. I am not sure what the sound guys were up to, but part way into the set the sound got louder and the levels were all muddied and the vocals were a bit lost. All in all, I would say Garbage performed well. Tight, and together. They played the newer music note for note like the records, but redid the music for a lot of their "classic" songs.

Tears for Fears

Tears for Fears has a new record out. The Tipping Point is their first record in 20 years and this show was their first tine at Jones Beach Theater since 1990! In all honesty, I wasn't much of a fan of Tears For Fears and was only familiar with, I thought, a couple of their songs, so I was going into this with seriously LOW expectations. But when the album came out, THE TIPPING POINT, I found myself more invested. The record is more rock with some country flavor, as opposed to the 80's alternative band I was expecting.

Tears For Fears took to the stage at just after 9 PM.

 Setlist:

1. Stay
2. No Small Thing
3. The Tipping Point
4. Everybody Wants to Rule the World
5. Secret World (Snippet of Wings' "Let 'Em In")
6. Sowing the Seeds of Love
7. Long, Long, Long Time
8. Break the Man
9. My Demons
10. Rivers of Mercy
11. Mad World
12. Suffer the Children
13. Woman in Chains
14. Badman's Song
15. Pale Shelter
16. Break It Down Again

Encore:

1. End of Night
2. Change
3. Shout

I am going to say they knocked my socks off. They were so in tune, so together, and played well, and were humble and delightful hosts for their set, which seems to be the same for each show of this tour. A funny thing I thought about. Usually when bands were big decades ago and put out a new album, they, frequently, concentrate on the old HITS that made them famous, and that's the way the fans want it. This show, however, was a prefect blend of old and new, and every minute was thoroughly enjoyable. 

In conclusion, this was a really amazingly fun show to attend, and Tears for Fears made fans out of the two of us!

 

 

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