Pop band Tears for Fears and indie rock band Cold War Kids made their way through central NY last Tuesday night as they played CMAC in Canandaigua. This marks the first time Tears for Fears has performed this venue since June 13, 1990. Tears for Fears has a new album they’re in tour in supporting ‘The Tipping Point’ which came out in early 2022. This is the bands 7th studio effort and this is a show on the 2nd part of the ‘Tipping Point’ tour. The band is still spearheaded by founders Roland Orzabal on guitar and Curt Smith on bass.
Tears for Fears took the stage with a all smiles and kicked into a new track called “No Small Thing.” A strange choice as it’s a more of a laid-back track. It worked here for me personally as it showed the bands tightness right off the bat. They dove into another new song, the title track to their latest effort. Both Orzabal and Smith sang co-leads on the track with the video screen showing what looked like swirling gray clouds. Of course, a lot of cheers came with just hearing the opening synthesizers to the next track “Everyone Wants to Rule the World.” Smith worked every inch of stage as he sang the song with a strong conviction. The band dove back to 2004’s ‘Everybody Loves a Happy Ending’ with the ‘Secret World.” This track proved that Smith and Orzabal still have strong vocal harmonies when singing together. Another popular track that the band had back in the late 1980’s with “The Seeds of Love” was up next. It was funny when Orzabal stopped and sang slowly the lyric “God Damn Politics!” “My Demons” harmonies was another superb job by Orzabal and Smith harmonizing. Other highlights include the singing prowess of backup vocalist Lauren Evans. She handled the lead vocals on “Suffer the Children” and traded vocals with Orzabal on “Woman in Chains.” She was a great addition to the band, and she showed she could hold her own for sure. Tears for Fears closed their set with their biggest hit in “Shout.” Orzabal took the microphone and bent down to lets some lucky fans in the front help sign the song.
Opening the show was indie rock band from Long beach California called the Cold War Kids. The band has 9 albums to credit. In was very impressed by the vocals and Nathan Willet, who went back and forth between playing guitar, keyboards and signing the entire 40-minute set. I must say the bass player Matt Maust didn’t seem like he wanted to be there. He stood in place a few times and seem like he didn’t want to move or seemed bothered by the others on stage. Besides his antics, I thought the band was pretty good.
Overall, it was a good show, and I was glad I finally got to see Tears for Fears live.
Setlist:
No Small Thing
The Tipping Point
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Secret World (snippet of Let Them In)
Sowing the Seeds of Love
Long, Long, Long Time
Break the Man
My Demons
Rivers of Mercy
Mad World
Suffer the Children
Woman in Chains
Badman’s Song
Pale Shelter
Break it Down Again
Head Over Heels/Broken
Encore:
Change
Shout
We would like to thank Jordynn Gould from CMAC for the credentials to review the show.
