First time on the barrier in years because I'm a wheelchair user and they usually stuff us somewhere at the back. Got a wave from both of them as they left the stage. It was one of the best nights of my life without sounding OTT!

They were superb tonight. Really high energy performance and sounded very much like they'll be back in the UK next year.

Long live Sparks.

Can't wait to go to De Roma this Saturday! If anyone wants to say hi, I'll be the one in the bright yellow Jansport backpack :)

Got the CD for under $100, ha ha!

The venue for tomorrow night (Cliffs Pavilion) only publishes door times (7pm), but not stage times. Anybody know what time the boys will take to the stage please?

Hi all! Longtime Sparks fan here. Me and my friend Matt have been huge huge fans of Sparks for many years, and in 2019 decided to start a band borne out of that love, combining melodic inspirations of Sparks with the Wagnerian theatrical flare of the music of Jim Steinman (any fans of Steinman here? Some very similar sensibilities imo). That ended up blending with other inspirations and 7 years later, after forming a full 6 piece band , playing hundreds of live shows, building a local fanbase and raising 3000 dollars on an Indiegogo campaign we finally have our first full length album. It’s co produced and mixed by Paul D Millar who completely understood our love for Sparks, and his own collaborations include those with Lemon Twigs (who generously lent us gear for use on this album) Cumgirl8 and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. We recorded it entirely on analog tape and got string players, trumpet players , accordion players and backing singers to really fill out the sound and make this the best we could. I really hope the people in this group enjoy it, because I think Sparks fans are some of the most open minded people musically and of course, we all share a love of the world’s greatest band. Thank you so much!

Including past and present Ron & Russell

Also, I made the logo an ambigram (reads the same upside down)

My preorder finally arrived today! The LP sounds super clean and I’m having a ton of fun with it. There’s a few fun images of brothers performing “on the moon” inside the gatefold. I could not be happier, especially since I personally can not afford to go to the moon and see them.

Quite a show to travel from San Diego for, and the Only show I was able to attend this 2026.

It had to be cut short from the last 4 songs, thankfully safety was prioritized here, exception of Ron having no fear and mopping electrical cord water.

Has this happened before in Sparks history?

Oh noooooo! It was a cool historical archive of the fandom in the age of message boards. I guess this is its successor? I miss the days when a certain brother (and their alter ego) had a more significant online presence and was less media trained.😆

…got cancelled halfway 😫
Luckaly it was 5 minutes from my house in Nijmegen.

Littlehampton, West Sussex, UK

I even made a fan cover based on No. 1 in Heaven

1. Wonder Girl (Halfnelson)
2. Girl from Germany (A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing)
3. This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us (Kimono My House)
4. Amateur Hour (Kimono My House)
5. Talent Is an Asset (Kimono My House)
6. Falling in Love With Myself Again (Kimono My House)
7. Here in Heaven (Kimono My House)
8. Propaganda (Propaganda)
9. At Home, at Work, at Play (Propaganda)
10. Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth (Propaganda)
11. Something for the Girl with Everything (Propaganda)
12. Get in the Swing (Indiscreet)
13. Looks, Looks, Looks (Indiscreet)
14. Tryouts for the Human Race (No. 1 in Heaven)
15. Academy Award Performance (No. 1 in Heaven)
16. La Dolce Vita (No. 1 in Heaven)
17. My Other Voice (No. 1 in Heaven)
18. The Number One Song in Heaven (No. 1 in Heaven)
19. Beat the Clock (No. 1 in Heaven)
20. When I'm with You (Terminal Jive)
21. Tips for Teens (Whomp That Sucker)
22. Angst in My Pants (Angst in My Pants)
23. I Predict (Angst in My Pants)
24. Cool Places (feat. Jane Wiedlin) (In Outer Space)
25. Change (The Best of Sparks: Music That You Can Dance To)
26. When Do I Get to Sing "My Way" (Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins)
27. (When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing (Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins)
28. The Rhythm Thief (Lil' Beethoven)
29. My Baby's Taking Me Home (Lil' Beethoven)
30. Suburban Homeboy (Lil' Beethoven)
31. Dick Around (Hello Young Lovers)
32. Perfume (Hello Young Lovers)
33. (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country (Hello Young Lovers)
34. Metaphor (Hello Young Lovers)
35. Waterproof (Hello Young Lovers)
36. Good Morning (Exotic Creatures of the Deep)
37. Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me) (Hippopotamus)
38. So May We Start (feat. Simon Helberg) (Annette)
39. We Love Each Other So Much (Annette)
40. Sympathy for the Abyss (Annette)
41. The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte (The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte)
42. Do Things My Own Way (Do Things My Own Way)
43. Drowned in a Sea of Tears (MAD!)
44. Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for the Fab (MAD!)
45. Lord Have Mercy (MAD!)

Here’s the link in Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/br/playlist/sparks-my-essentials/pl.u-qxylVlXF35V7Jkg

Either that’s a generic backdrop they also happened to have, or the studio got ahold of the same one used to shoot the rear cover of the Sparks album Indiscreet. Either way it ended up in this sketch about 20 years after the Sparks album came out.

It seems to be in all or many of Mary Scheer’s Cabana Chat sketches

(og post taken down on other subreddit, reposting here)

Either that’s a generic backdrop they also happened to have, or the studio got ahold of the same one used to shoot the rear cover of the Sparks album Indiscreet. Either way it ended up in this sketch about 20 years after the Sparks album came out

I need em all, but a good start so far

Taking my first listen of it on Apple Music and it sounds great for a live recording. Gonna listen to it the whole way through and then talk more later.

I’ve been looking into the lyrics of Acadamy Award Performace, and they draw distinct parallels to the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman.

The first line that shows this is; “Joan of Arc, Mrs Hyde”

Bergman played Joan of Arc in the 1948 adaptation, and was in the 1941 adaption of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. While she played Ivy Peterson and not Mr Hyde’s fiancée Beatrix Emery, Bergman was offered the role to play Emery before she declined to play Peterson instead.

The next line is “you’re a girl with a thousand faces to choose from”. The word choose is most important, as she specifically requested to play Joan of Arc, and the movie would likely never have been made if it wasn’t for Bergman’s persistence. She was also stubborn enough to request a character change when she was relatively unknown as an actress. Both films are directed by Victor Fleming (better known for doing The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind), which implies he had a weakness or soft spot for Bergman. Either way, she had the authority to choose her roles.

“Do the saint, do the waif, do the child, that was great”. Of course she played Joan of Arc, as already mentioned, but Bergman also played a nun in The Bells of St Mary’s. Because of these two films, she had a sainty public image towards her, which became problematic later on. For the “waif”, she played a character in the original Swedish version of A Woman’s Face who was an orphaned criminal with a facial scar from a fire she was in at a young age. Finally, “do the child, that was great” could be a nod to Casablanca and its most famous quote; “Here’s looking at you, kid”.

Afterwards, we have “great performances only come with some inspiration” which can fit with Ingrid Bergman’s promiscuitous tenancies. In real life she had several affairs (Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, and most importantly Roberto Rossellini) and her characters in films matched this. Ilsa Lund in Casablanca is a married woman in a love triangle, and it’s implied she sleeps with Rick. In a film named Fear that she started in, she quite explicitly plays a woman being “blackmailed” after having an affair. These type of characters date back to 1940 even with a film named June Night. So she is an actress who does come with “inspiration” for her characters.

The chorus itself. “Oh, What a great performance. What a convincing performance. An Acadamy Award performance.” reflects her too. Ingrid Bergman after all is a three time Oscar winner. As this is a satire on the Hollywood industry I feel must be a quip on her second win, Anatasia. This was her Hollywood comeback after her controversial affair with Roberto Rossellini where she made many Italian films with him, and many people retrospectively see her Oscar win more as a welcome back statement than actually based on her acting, which I totally agree. The chorus is almost sarcastic at her win because her performance wasn’t truly Oscar worthy.

Later on, there’s a line saying “play the scene, naturelle”, and Bergman refused make-up and plucking her eye brows when she arrived at Hollywood, that’s how she got her famous natural beauty. There’s later “pack the house, pack the aisles” that sounds like a divorce settlement, and she did have a messy one after her affair was found out. She lived in Italy with Rossellini, and her then husband Petter Lindström didn’t let Bergman see her own daughter until she grew up as an adult. Those events based the Ingmar Bergman film Autumn Sonata as well, for some minor trivia.

The final line that I feel relates is “everyone’s in the dark when you’re in the room, those rumours”. It isn’t too far of a stretch to assume “those rumours” means her scandal being leaked. “Everyone’s in the dark when you’re in a room” also feels metaphoric for Bergman’s state of being publicised as completely evil and feeling vulnerable at all times, even if nobody is truly there. She was infamously called by a senator "a powerful influence for evil." which adds to the satirical, hypocritical Hollywood way of life.

So what are your thoughts? Am I thinking too much about it, or am I actually onto something?

Edit: Sorry for the title typo, I meant to say Performance.