A Totally ’80s Summer

They call it the Proust Effect: when a sensation triggers a vivid and specific memory from our past.

For Proust himself, the sensation was taste: a morsel of madeleine cookie melding with tea on his tongue in In Search of Lost Time. For some, it’s smell: a whiff of your mother’s perfume, or the unmistakable scent of whiteboard markers.

But for me, this summer, it was sound that ferried me back to a bygone era. Specifically, it was two dozen 1980s bands resurrecting the lost soundtrack of my youth — live on stage, right before my eyes. And ears.

Over the past four months, I saw 26 bands that hit big in the post-punk, new-wave, and spidery-goth era between Blondie’s “Call Me” in 1980 and the Pixies’ Doolittle in 1989. It was a wistful feast for the senses. I smelled a lot of cloves. I saw a lot of neon. And I heard a lot of keyboards. Lemme tell you what I learned:

1. The 1980s are having a moment.

My husband plays guitar in a local ’80s cover band called Joystix, so I’ve seen firsthand Gen Xers’ enduring fondness for yacht rock, MTV, and sappy sax solos.

It was an era when we weren’t yet worried about climate change or pet-eating immigrants — but we had other fears. The threat of nuclear war loomed over us like 99 Luftballons, as decried in The Fixx’s “Red Skies,” Frankie’s “Two Tribes,” OMD’s “Enola Gay” and even Modern English’s “I Melt with You.”

One of the best things about the ’80s? Weirdness became very, very cool. From Boy George to Prince to Cyndi Lauper and Weird Al, it was a time to let one’s freak flag flutter flamboyantly. It was also a time to embrace technology — drum machines and MIDI keyboards, Walkmans and CD players — before we really knew what technology was capable of.

2. Nostalgia beats quality songwriting.

I saw some astoundingly good performances: Simple Minds. The English Beat. Jane’s Addiction (before they imploded in Boston fisticuffs). Even a couple of tight, joyful sets by Men Without Hats and Wang Chung surprised me.

But I saw some head-scratchers, too, from Tommy Tutone to Stacey Q to Soft Cell (and for the record, our generation has a lot of nerve being offended by rap lyrics when we know all the words to “Sex Dwarf”).

Recent studies show that nostalgic music evokes powerful emotions in our brains, and the music we love as teens is most evocative of all. The very sound of it Prousts us right back to that awkward, arousing, eventful span of years between our first crush and our last high-school dance.

That’s why even some of the gimmicky one-hit wonders of the decade, like “Obsession” and “Turning Japanese,” served as audio-time machines that instantly transported me back to my adolescence. One chorus of Bow Wow Wow’s “Do You Wanna Hold Me” and I’m a gangly, moody sophomore in combat boots. A warbled verse of Flock of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song” and I’m seeing his eyes, they’re making me smile, and for a little while … I’m falling in love.

3. We’ve not aged particularly well.

The rockstars on stage sported sunglasses and Spanx to mask the ravages of the millennium. The rest of us dug out our Loverboy headbands, black parasols, or Members Only jackets. (Important aside: Not one among us should still be wearing fishnets at this point. Not. One.)

If I learned anything from watching more than two dozen ’80s bands this summer, it’s that people who came of age in the era of leg warmers, skinny ties, and fingerless gloves are exceptionally nice. No shoving. No rudeness. No blocking views with giant hats. No grousing when the person in front of you starts doing the Molly Ringwald to the Thompson Twins (and can you blame me?!).

In fact, the summer’s very best moments weren’t spent gazing mesmerized at Adam Ant, Love and Rockets, or Duran Duran. They happened when I peeled my eyes from the stage to focus instead on the BEST group to survive the ’80s: the sea of enchanted concertgoers grinning, nodding, singing, remembering, and Prousting all the feels beside me.