Sparks stays true to its distinct self in the band's first Milwaukee concert in decades

Musical memory might be better than travel memory: When Sparks played the Pabst Theater Thursday night, the core duo of brothers Ron and Russell Mael said this was the band’s first time in Milwaukee, although online evidence suggests the band played Summerfest in 1983, along with other dates.

But neither of the brothers had forgotten what they’ve learned since they released their first album together back in 1971, and they and the rest of the current Sparks lineup rolled out newer songs alongside (sometimes very much) older cult favorites to form a gestalt.

Russell, 74, was the more visibly active brother, handling nearly all of the lead vocals, from the increasingly high refrains within the 1979 disco-friendly synth-pop “The Number One Song in Heaven” to the lower tones within the buzz of the title track of this year’s LP, “The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte.”

He also bounced around the stage with purpose, clapping his hands with a verve that eventually got even the hippest audience members clapping along.

Ron, 77, handled the keyboards from the comfort of his basic live position for a half-century: seated, barely moving anything except his hands and fingers, gazing upon the audience with a countenance that implied blank menace.

One of Thursday night’s most obvious indications that the menace wasn’t earnest came when he contributed spoken-word vocals to the 1986 song “Shopping Mall of Love,” and his deadpan recitals of ardor offered dry counterpoint to the cubic-zirconia shine of the song.

A lot of the set, like a lot of the band’s discography (26 studio albums, so far), encompassed the band’s simultaneous commentary about and admiration for pop-music commonplaces and clichés.

There was “Music That You Can Dance To,” also from 1986 and with an artificial light that somehow suffused even the archest lines — ”every single beat where it ought to be” — with a glow of glitter-dust romanticism.

There was “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way,’” a glossy throb from 1994 that name-checked both Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious without irony, because the soft bliss of the melody and the yearning of Russell’s voice really did convey a hopeless yearning for stardom or punk-rock freedom.

And there was “My Baby’s Taking Me Home,” a 2002 selection during which Sparks transformed the repetition of the title phrase into a mantra with so many variations that one could imagine an alternate-universe Velvet Underground doing a 45-minute version.

Some of the musical energy required samples and prerecorded backing tracks, but the greater charge to the power of Sparks came from guitarists Eli Pearl and Evan Weiss, bassist Max Whipple, and drummer Steven Nistor.

They were the ones who really propelled 1974’s “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us” toward stadium-glam glory, cranked crunchy riffs into the New Wave of 1980’s “When I’m With You,” and lent group-hug warmth to the closing pop-rock number, 2020’s anthemic “All That.”

That warmth, combined with smartly deployed lighting and the Mael brothers’ continued dedication, gave the near-capacity crowd a musical memory that won’t have to be looked up 40 years hence.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: In first Milwaukee concert in decades, Sparks stays true