Yes it’s that Berlin, as in the makers of the mega-smash ‘Love Theme From Top Gun’ that will be closing their nine date 40th Anniversary UK tour in Brighton.
The show will be taking place at the all-new, all-singing, all-dancing CHALK Live (formerly known as The Haunt) at 11 Pool Valley, Brighton, BN1 1NJ on Wednesday 4th December – grab your tickets HERE and from your usual ticket agents.
Prior to appearing in Brighton, the band will be kicking off their mini-tour in London, before going onto to visit Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Chester, Southampton, Bognor Regis (for the ‘Electric Dreams Weekender‘), Leeds and Wolverhampton.
The Los Angeles-based synth pop group, adopted the format that most people are aware of after singer Terri Nunn answered an advert through the Musicians Contact Service in Hollywood in 1979, placed by the band’s founder members John Crawford (bass guitar), Dan Van Patten (drums) and Chris Ruiz-Velasco (guitar). The band name was chosen to make them seem European and exotic. They were inspired by the keyboard work of Kraftwerk, Devo, Sparks and The Screamers.
The debut Berlin album came out in 1980 and was called ‘Information’. However they made their first national impression with the provocative single ‘Sex (I’m A…)’ from the gold-selling second album in 1982 called ‘Pleasure Victim’, which was the first album to carry the seductive vocals of Terri Nunn.
A third album arrived in 1984, titled ‘Love Life’ and it featured production from Giorgio Moroder amongst others. Things were by now moving in the right direction and then the following year, the group was pared down to a trio of Crawford, Nunn, and drummer Rob Brill. Album four ‘Count Three & Pray’ was released which spawned four singles, including ‘Take My Breath Away’, which was featured in the film ‘Top Gun’. The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1986. It was also No.1 here in the UK as well as Belgium and made No.2 in Canada, France, The Netherlands and Australia, and also peaking at No.3 in Denmark and No.4 in New Zealand. The band had got themselves a worldwide hit!
Nunn left for a solo career in 1987, and Crawford and Brill teamed up in the Big F. In 1999, the band reunited to record some new studio material and also performed a concert, which, along with the new songs, was released as 2000’s ‘Berlin Live: Sacred and Profane’. This was followed a year later by a flurry of recording sessions that included co-writing tracks with Billy Corgan, among others. The end result, ‘Voyeur’, was their first full-length studio release in over 15 years. On the first week of August this year, Berlin released their ten track 36 minute ‘Transcendance’ (eight studio) album, which features a re-recording of ‘Sex (I’m A…)’.
The current lineup is listed as: Terri Nunn (vocals), Carlton Bost (guitars), Dave Schulz (keyboards) and Chris Olivas (drums) and last month the band have been playing gigs with The B-52’s and OMD in the USA.
More information can be found at the band’s official website berlinpage.com
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