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Tour Madness November 21st to November 30th 1979 - ONE STEP BEYOND TOUR: Leg 1 AMERICA
November 21st, 1979: NEW YORK, NY: Irving Plaza
Attendance: 1,000 - sellout
Madness embark on the American tour they were offered if they'd sign to Sire Records. Although 'One Step Beyond' isn't released in the States yet, the album is available at import-stores while local radio-stations play its tracks on a regular basis. The tour begins with four concerts in New York at four different venues. These shows sell out thanks to a group of fans who've been reading articles about the ska-revival and associated bands with it. Madness' debut on American soil goes down well.
November 22nd, 1979: NEW YORK, NY: Mudd Club
This show is reviewed for Melody Maker 'After being regaled with tales of how electric the previous night's show had been, this merely proficient set by Madness was disappointing'. I'm left, alas, with reporting on a show that had all the right elements but didn't reach much of an exciting level. They played most of 'One Step Beyond' and fed my own partiality to My Girl, In The Middle Of The Night and Tarzan 's Nuts quite sufficiently. And they had the crowd bopping along with them (and cheering by the end of the set even if the response had only been lukewarm earlier)
November 23rd, 1979: NEW YORK, NY: Hurrah
Richard Grabel reviews the show for New Musical Express: 'The place is packed full, and not with curiosity-seekers, but with fans; it's the making of a cult. Madness get the best reception I've seen any band get at this particular club. Chas Smash does the intro and they're off into One Step Beyond. Purely on the basis of prejudice, I'd have thought a bunch of white yobs playing ska to be an unlikely proposition, but they do it. Razorblade Alley was a good reggaefied break, slowed down, sexy and insinuating. Frontmen Suggs and Chas are a visual treat: lively, funny and captivating. For Nightboat To Cairo, they take off their porkpie-hats and put fezzes on. During Swan Lake they engage in a comic display of head-bumping and mock-aggressive shoving with arms and feet swinging in time. They're natural comics in the best laurel & Hardy or Three Stooges slapstick-tradition. The only trouble is that if Madness-concerts here were ruined by the kind of violence that disrupts gigs in London, this mock-aggression of Suggs and Chas wouldn't be funny at all. Our distance provides a certain innocence; the concerns about fans of the National Front that figured predominantly in Deanne Pearson's recent Madness-article would not ordinarily arise here, so lt is possible for us to accept Madness as a good time dance band'.
November 24th, 1979 (TWO SHOWS): BOSTON. MA: Paradise Club
Madness interrupt the New York-leg of the tour for two shows in Boston on the same evening.
November 25th, 1979: NEW YORK, NY: Tier 3
Richard Grabel writes in New York Rocker magazine: a 'Madness are saddled with a heavy burden, and it is impossible to write about them at this point without dealing with it. Kids who fancy themselves members of far right and neo-Nazi political groups show up at Madness-gigs in England, wearing swastika armbands or other nasty paraphernalia. They get into fights and there is tension and trouble. And the press can't stop debating whether Madness ought to publicly disavow this segment of their audience or stick to their policy of steering clear of political talk. None of this was on the audience's mind at Tier 3 either, where Madness played their last New York date to a crazed, overflow crowd. Because there is no stage at Tier 3, only the people right up front could see the band. That didn't matter, the whole club was dancing and jumping'.
November 26th, 1979: PHILADELPHIA. PA: Hot club
November 1979: AUSTIN, TX:
November 29th, 1979: SAN FRANCISCO. CA: Mabuhay
Support: The Dead Kennedys
The last shows on this tour take place in California.
November 30th, 1979 (Two Shows): LOS ANGELES. CA: Whisky a go-go
Support: The Go-Go's
Initially Madness are billed as the support-band, but due to overwhelming success they become deadliness
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