The musical highlight of the V festival was the rare show by Human League performing the 1981 Dare album in its entirety but most of the crowd missed it.
There couldn’t have been more an a few hundred people at “The Other Stage’ watching the techno-dance classic played live by its creators.Phil Oakey, Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall reinvented The Human League with Dare following the departure of founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware who splintered into the Heaven 17. At the time, Oakey cut a deal with his former partners to keep the name but inherited the debt and still had to pay them royalties.
‘Dare’ was therefore a major gamble.
The album was the third under the name Human League and first with Sulley and Catherall, who both brought a totally new sound to the group with the male/female play-off in the vocals.
The big song from the album was ‘Don’t You Want Me’, a tale of jealousy and obsession told from both the male and female perspective.
‘Seconds’, the darkest song from the album was about the assassination of John F, Kennedy. ‘It took seconds of your time to take his life’, Oakey sings in a berating of Lee Harvey Oswald.
‘Love Action’ was the first hit from the album. The autobiographical song features Oakey singing “this is Phil talking’ as part of the lyric, a trick he stole from Iggy Pop.
It was a shame so many at V missed Dare performed live. You will never see it again.
Following Dare, Human League played the rest of their hits including ‘Fascination’, ‘Mirror Man’ and Phil’s solo hit ‘Together In Electric Dreams’.
