Modern English is back in the USA after a nearly three-year absence courtesy COVID-19, and Tucson’s popular cumbia band XIXA is helping to reacquaint the Brit post-punk rockers with the Southwest.
XIXA hooked up with Modern English last week for a trio of Texas dates before the band plays the Hotel Congress Plaza on Saturday, March 26. XIXA also will open for the band at Phoenix’s Rebel Lounge on Sunday, March 27.
XIXA frontman Brian Lopez said XIXA will play as a four-piece — their bandmate Jason Urman will be MIA since he’s getting married days before the gig.
“It will be cool. It’s going to be a different vibe,” Lopez said from Austin, Texas, where the band was playing several shows as part of the South by Southwest Festival.
“This has been super fun getting out here with the guys and doing our thing,” Lopez added. “People are very receptive. We are hitting strides.”
For their Tucson show, though, they are the opening act, Lopez said, and it’s one of only a handful of gigs they have on the books this year while they focus on a new record that they’ve been working on throughout the pandemic.
Lopez said he’s looking forward to hearing Modern English perform their signature hit “I Melt With You,” which Modern English’s Mick Conroy said is definitely a crowd-pleaser.
“I Melt With You” put the 1980s new wave band on the international map when they released it in 1982 and the song has endured through its appearance in movies, TV and commercials. During the height of the pandemic lockdown in June 2020, the band released a Zoom lockdown version with each member filming their part from their isolation. The video, released at the end of June, has gotten more than 1 million views, proving the song’s appeal has not waned with the years.
During a phone call from a concert stop in Atlanta early last week, Conroy said the band is excited to be back on the road.
“It’s amazing. It’s great fun,” he said. “We’ve been rehearsing quite solidly beforehand. After we finished our first song, wow, applause. People still like us.”
Conroy said he has never met the guys from XIXA, although he is familiar with Gabriel Sullivan, who leads the band with Lopez. Their meeting last week in Texas was going to be a first, he said, arranged because the two bands share a manager.
“It’s good fun to be able to meet them,” he said before he and the band had arrived in Texas.
Conroy said he and his bandmates are planning to extend their stay in Tucson. After their Phoenix show, Modern English will take up a brief residency in Tucson to work on their forthcoming album at XIXA’s Dust & Stone Recording Studio. He is hoping the band will capture moments that will add to the project, little sound snippets from the Hammond organ to tambourines and guitar licks created in the Tucson studio.
“We are looking forward to actually being in a studio where we can throw ideas around,” he said.
Saturday’s Congress show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 through hotelcongress.com and it’s a 21-and-older show.
