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Waiting for an invitation to arrive
Goin' to a party where no one's still alive
It's a dead man's party . . .
Leave your body at the door -from Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party"
When Oingo Boingo lead singer Danny Elfman straggled up the stairs for an interview at his manager's second-floor office in Hollywood recently, his unshaven face, tousled red hair and the dark glasses shading his eyes made him look like he had just spent the night at a "Dead Man's Party."
But Elfman's slightly disheveled appearance had less to do with trying to live up to the title of the quirky Los Angeles band's last album than with the effects of a mild cold he was trying to shake.
"I'll survive," Elfman, 31, said with a wry grin.
While Elfman's comment referred only to his cold, it could as easily apply to the tenacity and longevity-at least in the volatile rock music world-of Oingo Boingo itself, a band whose music seems to epitomize the concept of "disposable pop."
As the group's colorful, articulate and frequently outspoken leader and songwriter, even Elfman doesn't expect future generations to reverently reminisce about Oingo Boingo's percolator pop tunes.
"To me rock 'n' roll is and always has been a very temporary art form," Elfman said. "It was designed that way since day one. So I've never understood these people who look back at the `rock classics' with all this reverence."
Consequently, those attending Oingo Boingo's concert tonight at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre shouldn't expect to find a whole lot of revering goin' on.
Neither will there be much in the way of trumped-up special effects for the Halloween night show, which has become an annual tradition for the band. But that's not to suggest the event won't have a celebratory atmosphere, given Elfman's wildly energetic delivery, the use of clever, animated film clips and the general spirit of the 1985 "Dead Man's Party" album.
"The heart of the show will be our own energy," Elfman said. "Anything else we do around that is just not that important or crucial to the show. As always, there will be little bits of visual things. But we won't rely heavily on them-as we never do."
The group will...