Don’t you (forget about us): Simple Minds kick off latest tour

‘Stick with me (and we’ll play at the Opera House one day),’ Simple Minds Jim Kerr said. After 42 years, they did.

Singer Jim Kerr leads the way as Simple Minds perform live. Picture: Thorsten Samesch

On a spring day in 1981, five young men soon to become known worldwide as Scottish band Simple Minds landed in Sydney for their first Australian tour.

Soon after landing, they discovered another up-and-coming band from the UK, Liverpool outfit Echo and the Bunnymen, was playing that night at the Manly Vale Hotel, two nights before Simple Minds’ own Australian debut.

Jet lagged but eager to see their compatriots play 10,000 miles from both bands’ home country, they jumped on the Manly ferry at Circular Quay. As they passed the majestic Sydney Opera House and wondered about playing there one day, founder and lead singer Jim Kerr said to childhood pal and lead guitarist Charlie Burchill: “Stick with me.”

At least so the story went, according to Kerr on Thursday night, as he and Burchill 42 years later graced the Opera House’s concert hall stage for the first time with back-to-back performances to launch Simple Minds’ latest Australian tour.

Playing two shows in the space of a few hours is unusual: 64-year-old Kerr joked that a mate had told him “just go easy” in the first show and save the energy for the second one. His response drew cheers and applause: “Simple Minds never goes easy!”

In a testament to the band’s enduring hits and live expertise, the Opera House audience spent far more of the 100-minute concert on their feet than in their chairs.

There’s a certain formula to be observed at Simple Minds concerts over the decades since their heyday of the 1980s.

Must play Waterfront, the tub-thumping anthem to their working-class home town of Glasgow – tick. Alive and Kicking – tick. Don’t You (Forget About Me) with audience singalong for the “la-la-la-la” section – “now sing it Japanese,” Kerr laughs at one point – tick.

The breakthrough album of 1982 – New Gold Dream – has always held a special place in the bands’ and fans’ hearts and got four songs on the first concert setlist and six on the second, which began at 9.30pm.

The title track concluded with a blistering solo from the band’s exceptional drummer of the past five years, Cherisse Osei, so far from the quintessential image of a drummer wearing a sparkly skin-tight jump suit.

But there were more than enough changes to the setlist from the previous tour in 2017 to keep the concert fresh.

Two songs from the latest album – Direction of the Heart, the band’s 19th studio recording – were as dynamic as Simple Minds’ early material, albeit not as recognisable to many in the audience.

I Travel and Theme For Great Cities, songs that featured on the 1981 Sons and Fascination tour, were welcome additions.

But the night’s crowning moment came after Osei’s heart-racing drum solo with a dramatic mood switch to the No.1 hit from 1989, Belfast Child, a song Simple Minds had not played in Sydney since the tour of the same year.

A heart-wrenching, spine-tingling song about The Troubles of Northern Ireland in the 1980s comes from a period of Simple Minds’ own internal troubles, which led to the departures of key members.

For many years, Kerr declined to play it for the pain he said it brought. But on Thursday night, the hushed sell-out audiences of about 2500 at each show soaked in nine minutes of atmospheric genius, saving their loudest cheers for the conclusion.

Simple Minds’ tour continues in Mornington, Victoria (Saturday); Yarra Valley, Victoria (Sunday); St Kilda, Victoria (February 13); Adelaide, SA (February 14); Bribie Island, Queensland (February 17); Gold Coast, Queensland (February 18); and Perth, WA (February 21)