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The look of longevity

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

In 1982, Martin Fry had no idea he’d still be on stage 26 years later, singing The Look of Love and other signature hits by his band, ABC.

Then, he was just riding the new wave of ­glamorous, escapist European pop, fueled by MTV and a desire to do something different from 1970s guitar-god rock.

”I didn’t really see much beyond the next few hours,“ Fry says from a tour stop in San Francisco.

Yes, a tour stop.

ABC is back on the road with fellow ­Reagan-era chart-toppers A Flock of Seagulls (I Ran), Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go’s (We Got the Beat), ­occasional visits from Naked Eyes (Promises, Promises) and Human League (Don’t You Want Me?).

The Regeneration Tour stops Monday at Cincinnati’s National City Pavilion.

”The music should have (been) dated by now,“ Fry says. ”But it hasn’t. It’s kind of got a life of its own. It’s like that for the audience. Otherwise, it would be embarrassing getting on stage performing some stuff from 1982 or something. It’s 2008.“

Fry says that one of the striking things about standing back and watching the tour is the variety of music, from the California sunshine of Carlisle to the Brit-synth pop of Human League.

This is all stuff the kids who fancied themselves being into ”new wave“ were listening to. If your ’80s was marked by hair-metal bands like Whitesnake, there are other tours for you.

”We wanted to be very different,“ Fry says. ”The first bands I ever saw were The Sex Pistols and The Clash — the punk bands.

”We wanted our music to be more orchestrated and polished. We were also listening to a lot of club music and R&B, and we wanted to mix those two worlds together.“

With that formula, ABC created The Lexicon of Love, one of the seminal albums of the ’80s. The record’s cover, a James Bond-ish scene showing an elegant man with a gun holding a fainting woman, was a strong hint of the album’s theatrical music. Under the direction of the Buggles’ Trevor Horn, Fry sang about the allusions and elusiveness of love to arrangements by Anne Dudley of The Art of Noise, who went on to be an Oscar-winning film composer.

The Lexicon of Love produced a handful of Top 10 hits in England, and The Look of Love and ­Poison Arrow hit the Top 40 in the United States.

”People have gotten married to The Look of Love, and some have gotten divorced to When Smokey Sings, and their lives have changed dramatically in the last 25 years,“ Fry says. ”People do have fond memories of the 1980s, when there were big hair, big tunes, big choruses, big smiles ... small debt.

”There’s an audience that’s followed the music over the years and a new audience that’s into the flamboyance of 1980s, because they’ve seen the videos on MTV and VH1.“

Some of that new audience makes music of its own, and Fry says he sees his act’s ­influence on the charts.

”I look at bands like the Killers and I see a tradition of music that is larger than life,“ Fry says. ”I think that’s a ­tradition that goes back through Pulp and through ABC and back to Roxy Music.“

And like Roxy, Bryan Ferry’s 1970s creation that shares a strong kinship with ABC, Fry thinks he has an audience still interested in hearing his music, even if the chart-topping days are over. ABC released a new album, Traffic, in 2007, and Fry says its tunes have been well received on the ­Regeneration Tour.

”I feel like I still have songs to write,“ Fry says. ”My audience is interested in hearing what happens to you in your 40s and later in life.“