YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – With a slew of synth-driven hits, Wang Chung was a standard bearer of ’80s pop rock.
The British duo of Jack Hues and Nick Feldman had a knack for putting a playful bounce in songs like “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” “Dance Hall Days,” “To Live and Die in LA,” “Let’s Go” and “Don’t Let Go.”
Most of those songs live on, due in no small part to placements in commercials and films.
Those songs have been burned into the hippocampus of folks who lived through that era. Hearing “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” could stir a flashback to the days when “everybody wang chung tonight” meant whatever you wanted it to.
Wang Chung will bring some of that nostalgia to the Mahoning Valley on June 28 when it comes to the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre as part of the “I Want My ’80s” tour with Rick Springfield. The lineup also includes John Waite (“Missing You”) and Paul Young (“Every Time You Go Away”).
Springfield takes this tour on the road every summer and always hits Youngstown. He varies the lineup every year, but the result is always the same: A throwback party both for those who were there and the younger contingent that got turned on to the music through video games and the airwaves.
For Wang Chung, those hits are forever young. They’re still in rotation on radio and in clubs and periodically get a boost from sample placements – most notably the video game Grand Theft Auto. Wang Chung’s 1997 song “Space Junk” didn’t catch on until it was part of the soundtrack for the first episode of “The Walking Dead” in 2010.
It doesn’t hurt that the act’s music has a timeless quality.
Hues started noticing younger folks in the audience during his band’s tour last year.
“There’s a distinct presence of younger people who just picked up on the band through streaming services and stuff,” he says in a phone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.
“Wang Chung is an interesting band for them, especially guys who are aspiring musicians, because the songs are, on the surface, quite approachable,” he continues. “But once you start trying to play them and get underneath them, [you realize that] they’re pretty complex, and have all sorts of twists and turns.”
That’s a common thread of ’80s pop, according to Hues.
“There was this shiny surface, but all the bands were very much into the craft of songwriting and the craft of making albums as well,” he says. “We all took it very seriously.”
He cites bands like Tears for Fears and Go West as other examples.
“Back then, the studio was really where you did your important work,” Hues says. “It’s very different today. It’s more about the [playing live]. But back then, the studio was where you put in the time. Those albums were crafted to a high-degree finish. And I think that’s what gives the songs the enduring qualities they have.”
The Rick Springfield tour makes it a good time to remind people just how good those songs are. Toward that end, Wang Chung last month released “Clear Light/Dark Matter,” a remastered retrospective of the band’s biggest hits. The release also includes a few hidden gems from Wang Chung’s long career, including a never-before-released demo (“True Love”), a club remix of “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” a live version of “Fire in the Twilight” and demos of “Dance Hall Days,” “True Love,” “To Live and Die in L.A.” and “Eyes of the Girl.”
The album is available on CD and digital, and also a vinyl double set. There is also a single-vinyl release of just the “Greatest Hits” (disc one of the package).
A deluxe edition of the double CD and vinyl release that includes a booklet and other extras is available for $89.95.
The new release is a way for Wang Chung to kick off a more ambitious project. It wants to rerelease all six of its studio albums, remastered and with demos and alternative versions added.
That can be tricky – and costly – to pull off, but the newly released retrospective album “creates a template for the way that we’re going to do the rest of these albums,” Hues explains. “It gives a taste of the range of what we do.”
It’s an ambitious plan, Hues admits, but progress is being made.
“Whether we’ll actually achieve that, I don’t know, but we are [in talks with a company] about a 40th anniversary rerelease of ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ this year.”
For now, Wang Chung is on the road with the “I Want My ’80s” tour and loving it.
The band has done ’80s package tours before but this is its first with Rick Springfield, and Hues likes the lineup and the format.
“This one is a good one,” he says. “I like what Rick does, and John Waite is also on there and he’s a great songwriter.”
Hues particularly likes the fact that there are only four bands on the bill.
“A lot of these ’80s packages have way too many bands,” he says. “You get like three songs from each band and then they’re off.”
On the Springfield tour, each act gets about 35 minutes.
“It enables us to do the hits and a couple of other songs as well,” Hues says. “The audience gets a good sense of it. We have a lot of hits and also a lot of songs that people recognize from movies and TV and advertisements.”
Hues also has other projects on the backburner. He released two solo albums in the last five years and is working on a third, which is almost finished.
“The solo album stuff is very important for me,” he says. “Wang Chung is a particular form, and I’m happy to do the nostalgia trip. But as an artist, I also need to do modern, contemporary stuff that satisfies my soul.”
Tickets for the “I Want My ’80s” tour with Rick Springfield range from $135 to $45. To purchase, go to Ticketmaster.com.
Pictured: Wang Chung is Nick Feldman and Jack Hues. The act will play Youngstown this month.