March 8, 1980 review: Lene Lovich and Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club in UB's Fillmore Room

 

I suspect this review was longer and got cut due to lack of space.  

March 8, 1980 

Openers Steal Show

         The sellout Lene Lovich concert Friday night was the main event of the season for Buffalo's New Wave rock crowd.

         They were all there in the Fillmore Room of Squire Hall on the State University of Buffalo's Main Street Campus – the crowd from Rockers, the crowd from McVan's – standing in their tight satin pants and their striped hair and their leather jackets and their buttons.

         But first they had to wait. They waited two hours in the lobby for a show that was supposed to begin at 7:30 p.m.

         Sound problems were the reason – not enough mikes for Lovich. The sound check look forever. The crowd kept building. Extra tickets were put on sale.

         The late start meant a short set for the opening act, Buffalo's Third Floor Strangers. But 20 minutes on stage was enough for the quartet to demonstrate two flashy lead guitars and a solid driving punch.

         That was the first surprise. The next was Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, a virtually unknown British pop-rock band, which nearly blew the socks off Lovich's New Wave audience.

         Singer Woolley, wearing a black leather jacket with Flash Gordon shoulder pads, took a spirited romp through the songs from his newly released debut album.

         The audience, dubious at first, wound up cheering lustily for his hit, "Video Killed the Radio Star." If there's life after New Wave, then Bruce Woolley is the first specimen.

         Another long delay preceded Lovich, the bizarre vocalist with the Bride of Frankenstein wardrobe. She didn't begin until about midnight.

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IN THE PHOTO: Lene Lovich in a record company publicity photo.

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FOOTNOTE: Lene Lovich, born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, went to England with her mother at age 13, went to art school and busked around London. She screamed for sound tracks in horror movies and worked with fringe theater troupes. Her spooky rendition of Tommy James' "I Think We're Alone Now" got her a contract with Stiff Records, which put her on tour. Thomas Dolby was part of her touring band too.

She stopped touring in the late 1980s to raise a family and didn't return to the stage until appearing as a guest with Hawkwind in 2005. She assembled a band that toured in Europe in the early 2010s and her four Stiff Records albums were released as a boxed set in 2023.

No setlist.fm list for Lovich that night in the Fillmore Room, but it has this account of her gig March 1, 1980, at the El Mocambo in Toronto.

Monkey Talk

Egghead

Sleeping Beauty

Writing on the Wall

The Night

You Can't Kill Me

Too Tender (to Touch)

Momentary Breakdown

Say When

Joan

Angels

Lucky Number

Home

What Will I Do Without You

One in a 1,000,000

Bird Song

Bruce Woolley was a co-author of "Video Killed the Radio Star," along with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, who all were part of a group called the Buggles. He released the song first, but it was the Buggles' version that became an international hit, selling 5 million copies worldwide.

The original Camera Club included two notables – keyboardist Thomas Dolby, who went on to have the hit, "She Blinded Me with Science," in 1982; and bassist Matthew Seligman, later with the Soft Boys and the Thompson Twins.

The band broke up after Columbia wouldn't release its second album. Woolley went on to a long career as producer and songwriter – he co-wrote Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm" and co-wrote and produced her eighth studio album.  For the past 30 years, he's been part of the Radio Science Orchestra, in which the lead instrument is a theremin. Setlist.fm has no listing of what he played at the Fillmore Room or anywhere else, although it includes the date.