This review in indicative of what I was writing in 1997 about The Alarm. It was before I was working officially for Mike Peters, so I went ahead and said whatever I wanted. The updated version of this show that Mike Peters released in 2006 was much better.
The Alarm
Spirit of '86 (video)
1986
By Steve Fulton
The Spirit Of '86 show at UCLA was one of the best days I have spent in my entire life. Having said that, very little of that wonderful day was captured on this video shot by MTV. With smarmy commentating by Martha Quinn, and a ridiculously bad 15-minute "extra" segment called "The Alarm Have Sounded", the video looks like it was slapped together in about 2 hours (it was). The concert segment is not much better. Without the sound, I would have given this video "3 stars" because it looks pretty good, but turn the sound up, and well, it just makes the video unbearable to watch. About half-way through the second song, Nigel Twist's bass drum is demolished by some frat-boy's football, and for the rest of the show we get a nearly bottom-less set of Alarm classics. Of course, this didn't seem to effect the sound much to the 20,000 or so people that were at UCLA that day, but the story is much different on the video. The best songs here are "Declaration", "Marching On", and "Howling Wind" because they come before the drum disaster. The version of "The Stand" is pretty good as well, but just fast-forward over "Spirit Of '76", it will make you ill if you don't.
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