SPARKS – MAD! TOUR at Revolution Hall

Name: SPARKS – MAD! TOUR at Revolution Hall
Start: 2025-09-26T20:00:00-07:00
Location: 1300 SE Stark St, # 110, Portland, OR, United States, Oregon 97214

Schedule

Fri, 26 Sep, 2025 at 08:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

1300 SE Stark St, # 110, Portland, OR, United States, Oregon 97214 | Portland, OR

Tickets: truewest.info/Sparks25
On Sale Friday, September 27th 10PM PST
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If the world is a cafe, its ridiculous patrons babbling ridiculously all day long, then Ron Mael is the guy on his own in the corner that you don't notice, quietly sipping his coffee. But he's watching, listening, making notes. Those notes become songs for his band, the legendary Sparks, to be sung by his brother Russell in his unmistakeable falsetto.
Despite the efforts of Edgar Wright's superb 2021 documentary The Sparks Brothers, which introduced the duo to a wider audience than ever before, the exact creative dynamic between the siblings remains inscrutable, as mysterious and unknowable as their private lives.
The one thing we know for certain is that Ron Mael is one of our most acutely perceptive observers of social mores. In a different discipline – dramaturg, cartoonist, novelist, cineaste, chronicler – he'd be a Moliere, a Hogarth, a Fitzgerald, an Altman, a Swift. He just happens to work within the medium of popular song. Another thing we know for certain is that Russell Mael has the asset of a talent to put those observations across in a uniquely arresting manner, captivating as a frontman and gifted with a countertenor voice of extraordinary range. The alchemy between Ron on keys and Russell on vocals – Two Hands, One Mouth, to invoke the name of one of their tours – is simply what they do. And they've rarely done it better than on MAD!, the band's 28th studio album.
Released in May 2025 on new label home Transgressive Records, MAD! finds Ron and Russell examining cultural phenomena such as branded backpacks, tattoos, performative devotion (whether to a God, a lover, a celebrity or a sports team), the hegemony of banter, and the rise of influencers. ('Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab' seems to be inspired by the modern-day parable of fake German heiress Anna Delvey, or at least someone very similar: “Will you visit me in Rykers?”)
Musically there are nods to New Wave, Synthpop, Art Rock and Electronic Opera – all genres Sparks had hands in pioneering, or straight-up invented. When you hear echoes of other artists, from Air to Shostakovich, you remind yourself that they're all people who Sparks influenced in the first place. (Well, maybe not Shostakovich.)
Ultimately, however, MAD! is a modern record, which belongs in, and speaks to, the modern world. Which is all the more remarkable when you consider the vintage of its creators.