Fly Away Little Seagull, Fly Away!

Here's how I remember it:

In January of 1993 a small ad appeared in the back of our local free arts paper City Pages. It said that a band called A Flock Of Seagulls were to play some crap wanna-be sports bar in the failing shopping complex that was Riverplace. The bar was called Mississippi Live, and neither myself nor Ms. Polly had ever heard of it. The ad also listed it as having a $6.00 cover. No presale, tickets available at the door.
SURELY this couldn't be the grammy-winning band from the 80's that were also called A Flock Of Seagulls... had they sunk so low as to be playing in what was basically a strip-mall sports bar less than a decade after the height of their world dominating popularity!?! I just had to find out.

I had been a fan of AFOS since first hearing Standing In The Doorway (still my favorite song of theirs) late one Friday night in 1982 on Ready Steady Go. I remember them opening for The Go-Go's, a show I wasn't able to attend, and my school being inundated with bootleg "Talking" t-shirts. I never did find out who was selling them, as I woul dhave bought one immediately! A year later I was "dating" An(gie) Archy and AFOS was her favorite band. She even liked them more than every teen girls heartthrobs Duran Duran.

So it was with immense curiosity that on that Feb. evening Ms. Polly and I ventured out into the freezing Minneapolis night in an attempt to satiate our curiosity. I had Ms. Polly's Sony Soundabout tucked into one boot and a cheap $10 K-Mart microphone the size of a Sure SM58 tucked into the other boot with the intention of recording the show. 

I don't remember there being an opening band, and shortly after our arrival (and after setting up to surreptitiously record the show) I remember lead singer Mike Score fronting a band of unknown (to me) musicians playing in a room that looked like it held *MAYBE* 300 people, on a stage that was *MAYBE* 8 inches above floor level, and *MAYBE* slightly larger that the average American dining room table.

And Mike was having none of it. It was glaringly obvious he wanted to be anywhere else in the world than on that stage at that moment. I didn't necessarily blame him. Here was a band that 10 years earlier had won a grammy for "Best Rock Instrumental" (for the track DNA off their debut album), had toured the world playing theaters and stadiums, reduced to playing some shit-hole stripmall sports bar in Minneapolis in the middle of winter.

My recording turned out OK considering the crap gear I was working with. What doesn't really come across that much on the tape is the seething contempt Mike Score seemed to hold for how low his band had sunk.

But apparently my tape sounds good enough FOR THIS COMPANY to have stolen a previous posting of my take and try to sell copies for $20. Go ahead and buy one if you want, OR YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE FOR FREE

Sadly I can't find any photos or visuals from this time period, so this post will have to remain photo-free unless something turns up.

A Flock Of Seagulls
Mississippi Live
Minneapolis MN
February 20 1993

Mike Score - keys & vox

Ed Burner - lead guitar
Kaya Pryor - drums
Mike Radcliffe - bass
Mike Railton - keys

Magic
Over My Head
Space Age Love Song
Setting Sun
Burnin' Up
The Fall
Quicksand
The More You Live, the More You Love
You’re Mine
Life Is Easy
Nightmares
Hearts on Fire
Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)
I Ran
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