The Human League – Live At Festival Of Fools, Amsterdam – June 10, 1980 – Flip Martian Collection – Live and Loud!
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The Human League in one of their early, pre-breakthrough concerts – recorded at The Festival of Fools in Amsterdam on June 10, 1980 by VPRO in Holland and brought back from the technical dead by Flip Martian for his website Live And Loud! – which is a great site and offers concerts from bands either before they made it or have not gotten the recognition they deserve – in other words, one of those websites that do a public service and are keepers of the flame for Rock – check out his site: Live And Loud!
On to The Human League – The Human League were formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album Dare in 1981. The album contained four hit singles, including the UK/US number one hit “Don’t You Want Me.” The band received the Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act in 1982. Further hits followed throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, including “Mirror Man,” “(Keep Feeling) Fascination,” “The Lebanon,” “Human” (a US No. 1) and “Tell Me When.”
The only constant band member since 1977 has been lead singer and songwriter Philip Oakey. Keyboard players Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh both left the band in 1980 to form Heaven 17. Under Oakey’s leadership, the Human League then evolved into a commercially successful New Pop band with a new line-up including female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley. Since the mid-1990s, the band has essentially been a trio of Oakey, Catherall and Sulley with various sidemen.
Since 1978, the Human League have released nine studio albums, two remix albums, one live album, six EPs, 30 singles and several compilation albums. They have had five albums and eight singles in the UK Top 10 and had sold more than 20 million records worldwide by 2010. As an early techno-pop[5] act who received extensive MTV airplay they are regarded as one of the leading artists of the 1980s Second British Invasion of the US.
So as a reminder of their formative years, and that the big break was just around the corner, crank this one up and have a listen to 1980 from the Festival of Fools in Amsterdam.
