Madness - Rimac Arena, UCSD, San Diego, California - August 28, 1998

Madness was one of the first cool bands I remember talking about at elementary school. To most of the world they are a one hit wonder for Our House, which I have probably heard thousands of times, and still when I think about it I get it stuck in my head. Crap, not again! Anyway, I remember first hearing it in fourth grade, and for some reason I associate it with an obnoxious girl in my class that I never really liked. For the record, she probably didn’t like me either.

As I got older I learned that Madness had many more songs than Our House and luckily much better ones. They are also the first SKA band I ever heard and later on in high school I branched out to English Beat, Squeeze and the Jam. I also remember seeing Madness on the Young Ones, an irreverent English show I used to watch on Sundays with my dad and my friend DA.

Ska is always a great excuse for dancing and I don’t think I have ever been to a ska show that I didn’t like. And Madness was no exception.

It was great to see all the old 80s mods out in full force with their hip shoes, hats and vespas. Normally I only saw them congregate at the café on the way up the Washington Avenue hill but at this show they were everywhere.

Other than that, I don’t remember much else about the show. At this point Suggs and crew were pretty old, but at that point at least he hadn’t sold out to a frozen foods company.