Haircut One Hundred Perform Pelican West January 28

On Friday 28th January 2011, Haircut One Hundred - one of Britain's leading iconic 1980s funk/pop bands will reform for a special one-off concert when they perform their debut album Pelican West in its entirety for the very first time at the prestigious London IndigO2.

Haircut One Hundred's founding members Nick Heyward, Graham Jones, Leslie Nemes and Blair Cunningham reunite for what promises to be an unforgettable night.

Tickets are available from Ticketmaster's 24 hour hotline 0844 844 0002, or can be booked online from www.ticketmaster.co.uk, www.stargreen.co.uk or www.seetickets.com

Tickets are priced £25.00. There will also be specially priced VIP tickets available for £49.50. The latter will include access to the pre-show sound check and a special after show party in the IndigO2's Purple Lounge.

DJ for this auspicious event will be none other than BBC 6 Music's Mark Jones of Back To The Phuture (www.backtothephuture.net).

"Haircut One Hundred were one of the first bands to make me feel like I could move my body legally" admits Jones. "It's a pleasure and honour to be djing. Oooh, must wear my Favourite Shirt too!"

The band will recreate their infectious funk/pop sound with the performance of the debut Pelican West album which includes the top 10 hits Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl), Fantastic Day and Love Plus One.

One of the UK's first digital recordings, the album reached #2 in the UK's official album chart in 1982.

Haircut One Hundred had four UK Top 10 hit singles between 1981-82, including Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) and Love Plus One. The debut album Pelican West was #2 in the UK's official album chart.
The band exploded on the UK music scene just as the new wave boom was peaking. Success came quickly. The Haircuts appeared on Top of the Pops several times and graced the covers of British pop magazines including Smash Hits, Record Mirror and the New Musical Express, and even had their own comic strip.

Their 1981 debut single Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) reached #4 in the Official UK Singles Chart. Their next single, Love Plus One, reached #3 and made the Top 40 in America. The following two singles Fantastic Day and Nobody's Fool each reached #9 in the UK Singles Chart.

In 2004, all of the band's ex-members reunited for an episode of VH1's series Band Reunited. Haircut One Hundred reunited again (partially) on 18th December 2009 at London's Cadogan Hall.

About Pelican West:

Pelican West was one of the first digital recordings made in the UK at the Roundhouse Studios once situated in Chalk Farm, London. A forerunner in the recording world, the album paved the way for new technologies and home recording software including Pro Tools, Logic and Cubase. Today, the latter technologies are used by most professional and home studios alike.

Digital recording allowed for many musical instrument overdubs without the loss of signal and without the added hiss or background noise which could mask some of the subtleties added by musicians. This was particularly useful when percussion and brass were being recorded. The band could layer tracks almost endlessly while still retaining the clarity. One careful listen to Pelican West and you will realise the amount of tracks used but notice how clean and bright the sound is.

The engineer Mark Dearnley put up with the childish antics of the band and still managed to capture the performances of each character. Some of his previous work included AC/DC. Producer Bob Sargeant with his ear for tuning and arrangements added his parts to the picture. As well as supervising the backing tracks and overdubs, he contributed with vocal harmonies, played Fender Rhodes organ and Harpsichord.

The album was a global pop phenomenon.

Crying All The Way to the Chipshop says:

"If Orange Juice had grown up in a nice suburb in Kent instead of Glasgow then chances are they would have been Haircut One Hundred. The sound of both bands had its roots in scratchy post-punk funk ("Favourite Shirts" is basically a rewrite of Talking Heads' "I Zimbra" - have a listen to them together sometime) and both had the same fey schoolboy aesthetic that gave birth to twee indie pop, but on record OJ were all snark and jagged edges while the Haircuts were smooth and happy, singing sweet songs about Toblerones and Baked Beans. Nick Heyward was the boy who joined the Boy Scouts and did his homework while Edwyn Collins was the one sitting at the back of the classroom and smoking behind the bike sheds. My girlfriend at the time had a crush on both of them so their audiences weren't mutually exclusive - I liked 'em both too - but one band was clearly more Smash Hitsthan NME."

"The designer Neville Brody recently stated that he thought Haircut One Hundred were responsible for the decline of British pop culture because, he said, once they got in the charts "it became about how you were styled, what clothes you wore and not what you had to say" (as if it hadn't before) which is a bit rich coming from the man who was art director of The Face at the time. If you have to draw a line somewhere between punk "authenticity" (zzzz) and 80s pop superficiality (you don't) why not pick on Adam & The Ants instead? If anyone is responsible for the Smash Hits-ification of popular music it's that lot who were in the charts first, sold cartloads more records, and had an even more contrived image. Any kid could dress in a chunky jumper, anorak, and deck shoes (and I, um, did) but Adam Ant was going around dressed as a bloody pirate. But it's a rather stupid argument to making about any band really."

"Besides, Haircut One Hundred made bloody good records which renders their image sort of a moot point. Though I do remember at the time that even after I'd bought and loved the 12" of "Favourite Shirts" I thought that maybe they were a bit flimsy and wasn't expecting great things from their album "Pelican West" (released the same year -1982 - as "You Can't Hide Your Love Forever") but was bowled over by how stuffed with cracking tunes and more enjoyable than a bucket of lollipops it was."