Monday’s 30th-anniversary edition of the Rainforest Fund benefit concert at New York’s Beacon Theater featured an incredible lineup that included Bruce Springsteen, Sting, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Debbie Harry, and Shaggy. But it was the Eurythmics that managed to steal the show with their three-song set of “Would I Lie to You?,” “Here Comes the Rain Again,” and “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”
Amazingly, they hadn’t played any of those songs since putting the group on indefinite hiatus in 2005. Annie Lennox hasn’t even toured as a solo act since 2007, but all that downtime clearly had no impact on her voice. Anyone who closed their eyes could have easily felt they were listening to a recording of her from three decades earlier. Dave Stewart also looked a good 15 years younger than his 67 years, making this one of the few reunions that didn’t disappoint in any way.
Here’s a video of the group performing their breakthrough single “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” shorty after its release in 1983. The synth-pop masterpiece topped the charts all over the world and led to an incredible run of hits, but the band went on an unannounced hiatus after the release of their 1989 LP We Too Are One. They reformed 10 years later to record the new album Peace and hit the oldies circuit, but Lennox has become quite shy about playing gigs in recent years and Stewart has focused largely on his work as a producer.
The group has appeared on two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballots in the past few years, but they didn’t get in despite shooting a video urging fans to vote for them. Whatever personal issues they had in the past are clearly gone, so hopefully the Rainforest Fund show was the start of a new burst of activity that eventually leads to a Hall of Fame induction ceremony.