Bananarama at the Warfield: through a modern lens

I’m two hours early. At an average show, there would be a few thin lines of people against the barricade, the die hard fans that probably waited outside of the venue for most of the day. The rest of the fan base would usually trickle in over the course of the next two hours. But this isn’t an average show. It’s 7:30 p.m. and more than half of the floor is flooded with people. To my left is a man sporting an oversized, black denim jacket crammed with patches of every album cover in Depeche Mode’s discography. To my right, there is a tall man wearing a skin-tight vintage Madonna t-shirt, passing out light-up necklaces to his friends. Above us, in the box seats, a DJ is playing a remix of Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” while groups of friends are meeting up, screaming and throwing their arms up the second they make eye contact. People are squeezing through the dense crowd with their drinks sloshing around, somehow managing to not spill them. Outside it’s a chilly Wednesday night in February of 2018, but inside the Warfield nostalgia and excitement are heating the crowd , as the children of the 1980s have come out in droves to see the original Bananarama, one of the most successful girl bands of all time, on tour together for the first time ever.

Around this time in 1988, tension between Sara Dallin, Keren Woodward, and Siobhan Fahey, the original trio, ultimately lead to Fahey’s departure. It was a breakup so infamous that in 2017, the Telegraph featured an article titled “Bananarama and the 17 other messiest breakups in music history.” Immediately following the split, Bananarama proceeded with Fahey’s replacement, Jacquie O’Sullivan from 1988 to 1991. In 1992 the group reinvented itself as a duo with two of the three original members, Dallin and Woodward. Throughout all of these adverse changes Bananarama’s music has managed to permeate through generations of artists and listeners.

As I wait for the show to start, I’m reminded of a fond memory from just two summers ago. I was out to dinner with close friends. For some reason, I had the beginning of the girl band’s breakout U.S. single “Cruel Summer” stuck in my head. I knew the song, but I couldn’t think of the lyrics or the title. I hummed the melody out loud to my friends and their eyes lit up with instant recognition; but the name of the song escaped them too. After almost an hour of failed attempts at Googling and Shazaming, we finally had to call a friend’s dad for help. The second I finished humming the song into the phone, he responded, “That’s ‘Cruel Summer’! Bananarama!” We blasted the song in our car the entire drive home, in awe of how infectiously catchy it was.

It’s now 9:30 p.m. The lights are slowly dimming, and the now-packed theater starts to scream. Suddenly, Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” is booming through the speakers and the crowd is dancing and tossing around balloons that have appeared out of thin air. Now their backing band is on stage, smiling as they look out to the audience. They seem touched. Finally, the live music starts and a large spotlight is dropped directly in front of the large screen that displays vibrant visuals behind the band. Looking over at the spotlight I realize that I’ve only ever heard the women of Bananarama; I have no idea what they look like.

From the side of the stage I see movement and a faint glimmer. The three of them march out on stage, their strides perfectly in sync. My inner fangirl bursts out of me and rips my eyes away from my camera’s viewfinder, causing me to miss a would-be iconic shot of the three standing confidently in front of the bright orange screen projecting their name over their heads. They are all wearing black, each with their own arrangement of rhinestones and accessories. Dallin breaks up the black with a silver chain hanging around one of her belt loops, a subtle reminder of their 80s post-punk background which I will later learn was a key factor in their charm. Fahey is wearing a sequined black beret, and Woodward has opted for sleeves of rhinestones that meet right at her neck. They look fabulous.

The trio starts the show with songs that I’ve never heard before, a cover of the Supremes’ “Nathan Jones”, then the originals “Robert De Niro’s Waiting” and “Rough Justice,” but the fans behind me sing every word with such conviction that it doesn’t really matter. The women’s light and witty banter on stage comes off as conversational, suggesting an interest in talking to their fans rather than at them. The group is known for their unison singing. Many people appreciate this aspect of their musicality, but it is also is feature that garners criticism. As the group sings “Cruel Summer,” through the Black Blood cover “Aie a Mwana,” “Trick of the Night,” “Shy Boy,” and a cover of the Velvelettes’ “Really Saying Something,” I notice that this decision isn’t an excuse for not singing difficult harmonies. Their songs are solid enough on their own that they don’t need to add complexities. Moreover, having three voices sing the same exact notes is not an easy task; it makes it apparent when one voice is slightly off. Bananarama has mastered this style of singing in their own right.

Every song sounds full and rich, due to the group’s talented backing band, but it isn’t until the last run of songs that I begin to comprehend the cultural importance of Bananarama. During “I Heard a Rumor,” the three women are accompanied by their younger selves on the screen behind them, mirroring each others’ dance moves across the decades. It’s a celebration of success in an industry where longevity is rare. As the disco inspired “I Can’t Help It” plays, guards are looking distraught as fans crowd the aisles to give themselves more foot room to dance. A guard does her rounds and respectfully pushes the audience back inside the confines of the yellow tape, and it seems to work for a short while. Then the group pulls out another hit single, “Venus” and the aisles are flooded with twirling fans again. The floor beneath me feels as though it’s threatening to cave in, and something tells me even if it did, that wouldn’t stop this audience from seeing through the end of this song. It hits me now that I’m witnessing something special.

For over half of their career, and all of my life, the media seemed to forget about one of the most influential groups in pop music. And it all has to do with what they are putting on stage at this very moment; a self-aware group of women who love to make music they like and dance how they please. They’re aware they are not perfectly polished because that was never the goal. They know what they’re capable of and they know in what fields they lack, and have been vocal about that in past interviews. This kind of attitude isn’t compatible with the media surrounded by the industry. They aren’t interested in something that they can’t pick apart on their own. When popular artists like Britney Spears, Madonna, Lady Gaga are made out to be these immaculate figures, the second they slip up, it becomes relevant news. With Bananarama there was never the false pretense of a manufactured girl group.

As the group is closing the show with an encore of “Love in the First Degree,” I realize that this reunion tour is a massive fuck-you to the constraints of artificial expectations that make it so difficult for women to succeed and thrive in the music industry. Over the span of their 37 year long career, Bananarama has endured more than their fair share of drama, criticism, and abandonment by mainstream music media. Tonight, the original lineup is the much-needed reminder that no matter how many decades pass, the connections we build with artists and their music never die.