Sparks perform at the Roundhouse
(Picture: Redferns)This coming November will mark 50 years since brothers Ron and Russell Mael released their first single as Sparks, setting into motion an utterly inimitable career as pop’s uppermost outliers. Now, in a plot twist so surreal that even they themselves couldn’t have scripted it, the Los Angeles duo have suddenly found themselves more widely embraced than ever before, thanks to a feature-length documentary made by Shaun of the Dead-director Edgar Wright.
Currently streaming on Netflix, 2021’s The Sparks Brothers ostensibly set out to unravel the enigma of the Maels, but in reality only added to their mystique, and featured some of rock’s most prominent names lining up to pay tribute, including Todd Rungdren, Beck and Taylor Swift/Lorde-producer Jack Antonoff.
Last night’s rescheduled Roundhouse show was the pair’s first opportunity to play London post-mainstream reappraisal, a spiritual homecoming the Anglophile art-rockers clearly relished every single second of.
Beginning with So May We Start from the César-winning soundtrack to their 2021 movie-musical Annette, the Maels made five decades in show business look like light work. At 73, dandyish frontman Russell proved every bit as vocally dexterous and light on his feet as in his mid-70s pomp, while 76-year-old Ron skillfully reprised his role as rock’s ultimate straight man, much to the audience’s delight.
Head to toe in black, the moustachioed musical director spent the majority of the gig conspicuously inscrutable behind his keyboard, making the few moments he did verbally communicate with the audience all the more riveting. These included a brilliantly deadpan reprisal of 1986’s Shopping Mall of Love, and a roof-raising break from character during The Number One Song In Heaven, which saw him briefly casting off his coat to dance cartoonishly to Giorgio Moroder’s iconic arpeggios.
As loyal fans were well aware, these flourishes are all part of the pantomime that has made up Sparks’ live show this last decade, but they were no less adored for their predictability. Coupled with strong support from a five-piece band, whose tight-knit backing vocals complemented Russell’s impressive falsetto beautifully, these choreographed theatrics only helped elevate the duo’s brilliantly absurdist pop to the level of Dada-esque performance art.
However, the real star of the show was Sparks’ exquisitely eclectic catalogue, the strength and breadth of which was demonstrated in a set extending from the macho glam of I Predict and operatic art-rock of This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both of Us to the off-kilter chamber-pop of My Baby’s Taking Me Home. And if it all felt weirdly timeless after all these years, it was perhaps because Sparks never fit into any one scene in the first place. To which we say: long may they continue to chart their own, utterly unique course.
