Sexuality and Erasure

Regarding Leslie Carr’s July 7 letter about Mike Boehm’s review of Erasure’s concert: I also attended that concert, and while I agree that Erasure put on a good show, I disagree completely that singer Andy Bell’s homosexuality wasn’t an issue.

Having seen Erasure when they opened for Duran Duran in 1987, I was aware of Bell’s flamboyant stage antics, but I considered his sexuality secondary to his dynamic performance. However, I was somewhat unprepared for the audience that Erasure drew as a headline act. In my opinion, their show was not a case of a straight audience lowering their guard to enjoy a gay performer; it was more like a gay pride festival. The rows around me were filled with homosexual couples openly displaying affection, and the fact that in the setting of Erasure’s concert, they felt free to do so seems to me a reflection of Bell’s openness about his homosexuality.

The reason that the audience wasn’t making derogatory remarks about Bell’s sexuality is that a great deal of the audience was itself homosexual--not because they were straight people “overlooking” the band’s sexuality as Carr suggested in her letter.

Yes, Erasure did put on an excellent show--but their homosexuality was a prominent aspect of their concert, and it wouldn’t have made sense for the review to pretend otherwise.

MELISSA HENRY

Garden Grove