Live in the City of Light

by William RuhlmannRecorded primarily at Le Zenith in Paris on the last date of a world tour in August 1986 and released as a stopgap to satiate fans while the group spent another two years crafting its studio follow-up to Once Upon a Time, Simple Minds' double-album Live in the City of Light was a good summation of the band's rise to worldwide fame between 1982-1985. Except for the 1981 "Love Song" (paired in a medley with covers of Artists United Against Apartheid's "Sun City" and Sly & the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music") and the inevitable movie song hit "Don't You Forget About Me," all the selections came from New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84), Sparkle in the Rain, and Once Upon a Time, and they were played in a heavily echoed, big-production style in keeping with Simple Minds' status as stadium-fillers. There weren't many subtleties, and Jim Kerr and company didn't make much effort to reach out to the crowd, assuming their adoration and simply basking in it. Kerr did encourage the audience to sing along on the, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" hook of "Don't You Forget About Me," but for the most part this was an album for the faithful who would respond to its familiar sounds without prompting. And in much of the world, they did. In the U.K., the album entered the charts at number one. In America, it was a different story. There, the recently established group could have used a new studio album and a hit single to consolidate the success of "Don't You Forget About Me" and Once Upon a Time rather than a pricey stock-taking effort like this, and the release broke their commercial momentum, especially because the next studio album, Street Fighting Years, didn't turn up until 1989.