2011 - Erasure "Tomorrow's World" Tour

October 24, 2011

2011 is a very memorable year for Erasure and their global audience as they are at this point in time on tour for about six month already, having first toured their 'Total Pop' double album before changing over to promoting their brandnew album "Tomorrow's world".

The album is produced by Frankmusik whose credentials also include working with the Pet Shop Boys and others.

He also supports Erasure on tour. His 28 minutes set is a mixture of peculiar yet amazingly energetic remixes of some classic songs that include the likes of Whitney Houston songs and even Paul Simon's "Call me Al" isn't spared.

Nevertheless the versions are done with respect to the originals and aren't too out there although they are dressed in a 21st century sugarcoated dance sound.

His original songs "No I.D." and "Do it in the a.m." with which he closes his set are, for me anyway, far more enjoyable than the songs that came before them.

On a whole, Frankmusik is not exactly my cup of tea yet I can recognise talent when I see it and he could go far in the future.

Interestingly enough, his influences on Erasure's 14th studio album "Tomorrow's world" seems to have fans divided since the sound is really slick and all songs are made perfectly to fit radio - short and sweet and many people therefore miss Vince's unique and often times amazing synth creations.

Be this as it may the album has garnered Erasure their biggest success in over a decade and at the time of writing this review, "Tomorrow's World" rides high in the charts. It is on nr. 6 in the US electronic music charts only one week after the album release across the pond.

To the fans "Tomorrow's world" will become yet another classic Erasure album and the new songs fit in perfectly with older gems and I like them live even better than on record.

The tour brought Erasure to Wolverhampton and the fans turned out in high numbers and Erasure didn't let them down.

Opening the show with "Sono Luminus" from the lesser appreciated Erasure album from 1995 showed that

a) what a great song that actually is and
b) that Erasure is a band that is caried through all ups and downs by their fans, which are obviously quite numerous.

The setlist included tight versions of "Always", "Stop", "Love to hate you", "Respect" and "Sometimes" and many other tunes that made Erasure a British institution and loved around the world.

Andy Bell looked amazing, well toned and fit and he himself remarked that he had enjoyed "12hours of sleep last night and my voice sounds very angelic".

Valerie and Emma Chalmers are as much Erasure on stage as the boys themselves and they add more than just female voices to the show.

What is also great for fans is the fact that the ever-so-shy Vince Clarke actually comes out from behind his laptop/synth quite a lot to play guitar right next to Andy, who, as always, enjoys the limelight and centre stage.

Productionwise the "Tomorrow's World" show is amazing and Andy's voice is still there and sounded very energetic.

New songs like "Be with you" or "A whole lottla love runs riot" sounded as exciting as their older material and Erasure have proofen time and again that they are still a force to be reckoned with and there is no sign of slowing down.

May they go on forever!