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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark set for Tijuana encore concert after 26 years

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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the pioneering English electronic music band also known as OMD, is set to perform in Tijuana on Sunday for the first time in 26 years. Ticket information about their show at El Foro Jai Alai (Tijuana’s historic jai alai palace) appears below.

A pioneer of the synth-pop movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, OMD last performed in Tijuana in 1991 at Iguanas. Their most recent San Diego concert was, if memory serves, in 2011 at the new-defunct 4th&B.

OMD’s Sunday Tijuana gig is only one of three North American concerts on the band’s current tour, following shows Friday in San Francisco and Saturday in Los Angeles.

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Cited as an influence by everyone from Depeche Mode and The Killers to James Muerphy and The xx, OMD was formed in Liverpool in 1978 by singer and bassist Andy McCluskey and keyboardist Paul Humphreys. They may be best known in the United States for “If You Leave,” the mid-tempo song they contributed to the soundtrack for the hit 1986 John Hughes’ movie, “Pretty in Pink.”

Their third album, 1981’s “Architecture & Morality,” sold three million copies worldwide and contained three songs that became Top 5 singles in Britain. One of them, “Maid of Orleans,” was the biggest-selling song of 1982 in Germany.

In their heyday, OMD performed at the San Diego Sports Arena and the SDSU’s CalCoast Open Air Theatre. But their fourth album, the defiantly un-commercial “Dazzle Ships,” sold just 300,000 copies. Pop fans at the time has little appetite for an experimental album whose lead-off single explored the topic cited in its title, “Genetic Engineering.”

Humphreys left OMD in 1989. McCluskey soldiered on, leading the band until calling it a day in 1996. The two reunited in 2005 and have since released three albums. The most recent is 2015’s “Dazzle Ships at the Museum of Liverpool,” an expanded, live version of their 1983 “Dazzle Ships” album.

OMD’s 13th and newest album, album “The Punishment of Luxury,” will be released Sept. 1 by 100% Records. Its title was inspired by the name of an 1891 painting by Giovanni Segantini.

“Most people in the western world are materially better off than their predecessors ever were and yet we are unhappier,” noted McCluskey in a recent statement. “Now we have many possessions that we don’t need because we’ve been persuaded to buy. This is the punishment of luxury.”

(McCluskey is, presumably, no stranger to Southern California. After he and his wife divorced in 2011, she moved back to her hometown of San Diego with their two children.)

McCluskey and Humphreys are being accompanied on their current tour by keyboardist/saxophonist Martin Cooper and drummer Stewart Kershaw, both of whom are longtime OMD collaborators.

Tickets for OMD’s 8 p.m. Sunday concert in Tijuana range in price from $25 to $70 each. They are available online at tijuanalive.org/ and by phone at (315) 332-1633.

For those seeking to enhance their OMD in Tijuana experience, the concert will be preceded by a 4 p.m. walking tour of Avenida Revolucion. It will be led by Turista Libre founder Derrik Chinn, a former writer for the Union-Tribune-owned SignOnSanDiego. The walking tour is free but requires pre-registration at eventbrite.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

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