Nowadays, we’re a lot more dubious when established acts announce their farewell tours (Motley Crue, who reneged on their promise to cease touring via an actual blood contract, will forever be first of mind as big fat liars in this regard). But Friday’s performance of the B-52s’ “Final Tour Ever Of Planet Earth” at the YouTube theater seemed different. The band’s key members are all in their 70s and produce some of the new wave era’s most spirited and vocally taxing music. Going out on top makes sense while they still have the energy to recreate the wild party on stage and the vocal range to do the strange high-register wails and chants that made them so distinctive.
The band’s namesake beehive hairstyles are no longer worn by Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, but they still manage to pull off the otherworldly croons we love on singles like “Love Shack,” “52 Girls,” and “Dance This Mess Around.” Fred Schneider, the band’s frontman, can replicate his Ethel Merman-like rally shouts with vigor and joy. Overall, The B-52s still perform “Good Stuff” live. But despite how much fun they were having, it was obvious that they meant for this to be the last chapter. Everything about the performance seemed climactic, from the variety of vintage video that was displayed behind them the whole time to the set list, which began with one of their greatest songs, “Own Private Idaho,” and finished with their biggest hit, “Rock Lobster.”
More than ever, nostalgia plays a significant role in the attraction of bands from the 1980s. Personally, “Lobster” was one of the first 45s we ever purchased, and as children, we repeatedly played it on a record player that looked like a toy. Schneider would instruct us to “go down, down” after the song, and we would be lying on the ground until the song took up again and became even faster and zanier than before, causing an all-out dance-happy explosion. In the finest manner imaginable, the song made us cry.
When The B-52s, DEVO, and The Buggles are available, who needs childish music to wiggle to? When we hear songs from all of these groups, we are still filled with delight as we remember how we used to dance and groove to them as children. We are not alone. At the crucial “down down” point on YouTube, people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s all around us started to sink into their seats and the aisles before popping back up and going bonkers, making for an electrifying conclusion to the concert. The atmosphere in the room was electrifying thanks to the opening act, KC and the Sunshine Band (unfortunately, they didn’t perform “Lava,” one of our faves from their self-titled debut in ’76, but “Give Me Back My Man” and “Strobe Light” made up for it).
A gigantic human-sized lobster danced on stage as the performance drew to a conclusion, and the auditorium was flooded with confetti that flew into the air. The band’s archival video from throughout the years was displayed behind them, most of it manipulated for maximum visual pleasure. The statement concluded, “To Our Dear Fans: We Love You! I Appreciate Your Love And Support For 45 Years. Cindy, Kate, Fred, Keith, And Ricky.”
The B-52s have three more gigs, including their final one in their native Georgia on November 13, after another regional performance on Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim. We’re happy we got to dance and shimmy with them at their final Los Angeles performance, but we still hope to see them again. Since this is supposedly their final tour on “planet earth,” “Planet Claire” is still acceptable. Below is a setlist.
