20/20 - Spaceland, Los Angeles, 1/27/96

Why share a seemingly random 20/20 show from twenty-five years ago?  For starters they were a phenomenal quartet who helped codify and write the blueprint for power pop in one of it's most crucial and formative eras.  Secondly, live 20/20 boots are a tricky commodity to come by. Case in point, I shared a portion of a 1979 gig from the Palladium in NYC many years back and haven't stumbled across much more in the way of concert recordings since (though no doubt some are out there).  Suffice to say when I had the chance to lab a DAT recording of a reunion show from 1996 I dove right in. 20/20 are a specimen I'll gladly accept in any iteration and era, and if you have half an inkling as to what the band in question are all about you know exactly why.

Why is it that bands (often of the one/two-hit-wonder variety) like the Romantics, Tommy Tutone and the Knack were anointed as the flag bearers for power pop circa the turn of the '70s and '80s, when much more representative artists (namely the Records, Rubinoos, Shoes, and of course, 20/20) were resigned to the cut out bins, and given short shrift by the mainstream music establishment?  If any of you are like me, perhaps you've pondered this as well. For better or worse what sells is what sells, and while the band did seize a recording contract with a division of Columbia Records in 1979, with two flawless albums to show for it (20/20 in 1979 and Look Out! in '81) they didn't quite come equipped with the shtick and short-lived charm of their chart topping contemporaries.  Fresh and beaming as 20/20's brand of guitar pop was when they initially arrived on the scene, the general public was distracted by shinier objects, so to speak, fleeting as they were.  After the band's deal with Columbia fizzled out, the independently released Sex Trap arrived in 1982 and a year thereafter 20/20 pulled the plug. Thanks to renewed interest in power pop in general circa the mid-90s, folks like myself were inclined to plunder the back catalogs of bands we missed out on when we were too tethered to Top-40 radio ten years or so before.

I'm not sure if this was the germ that sparked the reunion of 20/20 for their 1995 album 4 Day Tornado, and while it didn't exactly bear the exact tincture of the band that birthed classic sides like "Yellow Pills," "Tell Me Why" and "Cheri" it was a treat to have them back in any capacity. With the new record came some live shows, even if the quartet in question stuck primarily to their home turf of southern California. All of the aforementioned songs made the cut for this set, alongside deeper album cuts, and naturally, a bouquet of tunes from their then brand new record. It's hard to say if the guys were as spry in 1996 as they were when they established themselves nearly twenty years earlier, though you'll hear few complaints from me (save the exception of them omitting the debut LP's rather crucial "Jet Lag" from the setlist).  As I've noted, 20/20 concert tapes are a genuine rarity, and since another reunion doesn't seem particularly evident this show from Silverlake's hallowed Spaceland might be your last (and only) ticket.

01. Remember the Lightning
02. Song of the Universe
03. The Night I Heard a Scream
04. Tell Me Why
05. My Tuesday
06. She's An Obsession
07. A Girl Like You
08. Stone Cold
09. State of Grace
10. Cheri
11. Nuclear Boy
12. Yellow Pills
13. Tonight We Fly

MP3 or FLAC