Hello, My Name is Philip
Philip Oakey of The Human League( center)
G
iven the current dire existential calamities facing our shared world, Philip Oakey’ s remarkably busy tour schedule with his classic synth-pop combo The Human League— which extends all the way into several New Zealand dates already booked for NEXT
February, in distant 2027— might strike fans as anything from simple fingers-crossed optimism to blind, knuckle-headed ignorance of the actual odds involved. But from his secluded home in Britain, the singer swears he knows exactly what he’ s doing.“ I was born pessimistic, but my rudimentary grasp of arithmetic reassures me,” he quips, dryly.“ There are over seven billion people on the Earth, and I can’ t think of any man-made disaster leaving us unable to find someone who’ d sit and listen to our version of“ Behind the Mask”( with Yellow Magic Orchestra).” He underscores such optimism. With a clever Kiwi-concert point, adding a rhetorical“ And wasn’ t the last safe refuge at the end of‘ On the Beach’ over in the Antipodes?”
The jaunt, aptly-dubbed“ The Generations Tour,” also features fellow‘ 80s icons Soft Cell and Yaz( oo) vocalist Alison Moyet, and kicks off June 2 in San Diego; it wends its way to Chicago’ s Chicago Theatre on June 23. There’ s no new Human League release that it’ s promoting— merely a career-spanning catalog dating back to 1977 and definitive smash hits like“ Don’ t You Want Me”“ Open Your Heart,” and“( Keep Feeling) Fascination’ Adding to its timetraveling appeal: Original co-vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sully are on board, reprising all their soulful parts. It’ s almost the perfect panacea for our futuristic new era. Especially when, say, New Order’ s brilliant“ Age of Consent” provides the bubbly soundtrack to a Chevrolet commercial, Modern English’ s signature“ I Melt With You” propels the latest Hershey’ s Chocolate advert, and the ultra-hip HBO series Industry ended almost every episode of its recent season with a cavalcade of‘ 80s-vintage morsels like Ultravox’ s“ Vienna,” Alphaville’ s“ Forever Young,” A Flock of Seagulls’“ I Ran,” and even Enya’ s dreamy“ Orinoco Flow.” All of which basically feels like a veritable cornucopia of comfort food after staggering through today’ s typically scary evening news.
Has rapidly encroaching AI, with all its mood-detecting algorithms, left us longing for such synth-pop simplicity again? Oakey, at a sage-like 70, puts it this way:“ Yes, everything old IS new now,” he believes.“ But what I fear is that people coming after us have been attributing less and less significance to music. And when WE were their age, music was the most important thing in our lives.” As a teenager residing in the English steel town of Sheffield, he recalls,“ I used to go to London just to get Frank Zappa records, because they did not sell them in Sheffield..” He started with“ Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” just because he liked the Lichtensteincampy cover art, and then dove deeper into the rest of the catalog. These days, kids can stream anything they want online and often download it for free, which cheapens the whole musicunearthing experience. But there was just something about the pre-MTV struggle to find obscure records or see significant concerts that weren’ t coming to your town that made your
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6 illinoisentertainer. com april 2026