Despite evidence to the contrary, I'm pretty tired of 1980's music and don't listen to it very often anymore, especially now that I'm fairly up to speed on contemporary stuff. But now and then when the mood does hit, guess which 1980's band I tend to enjoy most? Wrong! The correct answer is the Australian new wave/pop-rock band Men at Work. They only had three albums before they fizzled out, but the first two were very, very good... especially the first one, Business as Usual -- the perfect pop album of that era.

Business as Usual was released in the United States in late 1982, a year after it appeared everywhere else, and produced the two big hits "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under" as well as the smaller hit "Be Good Johnny". As these were just charting here, Men at Work's second album, Cargo, was released all over the world, and so we ended up with lots of good Men at Work songs appearing in a relatively short period of time. The big hit from Cargo was "Overkill" which, aside from the the earlier "Down Under" novelty song, is probably their best and most enduring hit.

I bring up Men at Work 25 years after their American debut because I won free tickets to tonight's Colin Hay concert here at Louisville's Headliners Music Hall. Mr. Hay was the lead singer-songwriter of Men at Work, and has had a recent career resurgence following an appearance on Scrubs and a solo song on Zach Braff's Garden State soundtrack.

I'm excited about watching him play his handful of Men at Work hits (and recent solo stuff -- there's no getting away from that), and hope he will also play some the non-hit songs from those first two albums....

Update: Mr. Hay and his band were wonderful, performing for a solid two hours despite the fact that there may have been less than 200 in attendance. None of the Men at Work songs appeared until well into the second hour, but he did end up playing seven songs from Business as Usual and two from Cargo so I was pleased. I figured they were winding down after "Down Under", but then they kicked into a song that was unfamiliar to me yet got a good reaction from younger patrons... I assume that was the one from the Garden State soundtrack. Then things came to a glorious end with "Be Good Johnny"... and they announced Mr. Hay would be coming down into the audience to sign autographs and pose for photos. I would have loved staying for that, but I was so tired... and I tend to clam up around famous people. I never know what to say in those situations. I'm still embarassed by my meeting with Roger Ebert a couple of years ago, during which I could think of absolutely nothing to say. Why am I like this?

I have a lot of respect for Colin Hay. He played at least a dozen of unfamiliar solo songs and they all sounded pretty good to me. If he wanted, he could make life much easier on himself by touring under the name Men at Work rather than Colin Hay... at least ten times as many people would show up and he'd make lots more money. But he's doing it his own way and that's great.