Forever Young Festival Preview: Welcome To The Pleasuredome!

One of the most exciting events of the summer, Forever Young Festival 2019 takes place at Palmerstown House Estate outside Naas from July 5-7. A huge line-up of top-notch acts acts from the 80s will be on-hand to create a great retro atmosphere, pumping out all the hits at what promises to be the grown-up’s festival of the year. Artists playing include such luminaries as The Human League, Holly Johnson, Kim Wilde, Level 42, Jimmy Somerville, Marc Almond, Midge Ure, Big Country, Cry Before Dawn, The South, Hothouse Flowers, China Crisis, Bruce Foxton’s From The Jam and plenty more. To whet the appetite, below we revisit a trio of classic Hot Press interviews with some of the major acts performing. For festival, camping and travel tickets check out www.foreveryoungfestival.ie Let the fun begin!

The Cell of the Century

“I’m stunned, everybody’s stunned!” was how Marc Almond summed up the reactions of those connected with the success of Soft Cell’s classic, and remarkably brilliant ‘Tainted Love’ single.

When Hot Press caught up with the singer in 1981, the song was at No. 2 in the British Top 30. The coup de grace was the way the 12” version segued from ‘Tainted Love’ into a killer version of ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’

“Yeah, that very much happened in the studio,” explained Marc. “We like 12” singles, so we thought we’d just have a few bars of it at the end of ‘Tainted Love’ – whereas in fact we finished up with ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ being longer than ‘Tainted Love’!” It has gone on to be considered one of the classic segues. It’s curious that both songs are covers.

“Usually Dave [Ball] comes up with the tune,” said Almond, “and then I’ll put lyrics to it and maybe come up with a few musical ideas. It usually ends up very much 50/50 really.”

As fans will see for themselves at Forever Young, Almond was born to perform. “Yeah, Dave’s very much at home in the studio as opposed to the live situation,” noted Almond at the time. “I’m the opposite — I love appearing live.”

Relaxed Conversation

“When I last met Frankie Goes To Holly two years ago,” wrote Declan Lynch in his 1986 feature on Frankie Goes To Hollywood, “they were at No. 77 in the charts with ‘Relax!’, and thrilled out of their minds to be so fortunate. A few short weeks later, the doors of the Pleasure Dome flung open for the Frankies, and they were perched on the the top of the world, with one of the biggest-selling singles of all time.

“I would watch them on Top Of The Pops for the sixth consecutive week,” Declan wrote, “muttering such sage proverbs as... ‘I knew them when they hadn’t a stitch on their backs’.”

In 1986, Frankie Goes To Hollywood were promoting their second album, Liverpool. Singer Holly Johnson also spoke passionately about the band’s classic ‘84 debut, Welcome To The Pleasuredome.

“The rest of the band are slightly biased against the last album for some reason,” he joked. “It was a very interesting compilation of songs, I thought. The new one, I suppose, has a more unified mood. The first one had more fragmented moods, which I actually thought was a good thing.”

Holly talked about the band’s unique creative approach, explaining that the group typically laid down a track first, then handed it over to him to write lyrics. “I’m into the idea of NOT being like Queen or Echo and The Bunnymen, who develop slowly in terms of change from one album to the next,” he said. “The first album comes from a kind of pleasure-seeking stance, whereas this one comes from a more serious viewpoint. I was totally into a hedonistic lifestyle at one point. I was just besotted with the whole idea of enjoyment…”

And the beat goes on...

When Hot Press met Jimmy Somerville in 1986, the Glaswegian had recently left Bronski Beat to form The Communards with classically trained musician Richard Coles (these days a Church Of England vicar and noted broadcaster).

These old friends became reacquainted when Somerville asked Hughes to augment the Bronski Beat on sax. Richard’s involvement was a deciding factor in Jimmy putting something new – and brilliant – together.

“I said to myself,” Somerville recalled, “ ‘Well, this is going to work better than Bronski Beat’. So I decided, ‘This is it!’” And it was: the new set-up was better personally and emotionally, as well as musically.It wasn’t just about music, it was about my frame of mind.”

The rest, as they say, is history, with The Communards scoring hits like the utterly brilliant ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ (No.1 in Ireland and the UK) and ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’, which sit nicely on the singer’s CV alongside iconic Bronski Beat tunes such as ‘Smalltown Boy’ and ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’.