Tears for Fears Review with Photos 7-16-23

Tears for Fears brought their Tipping Point Tour Part II back to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands just one short year after they performed basically the same set list last year in Sugar Land. The two venues are separated by about 50 miles, and both serve Houston and surrounding areas. After a 7-year hiatus from the H-Town area founders Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith must have decided that there was no such thing as too much Tears for Fears with the greater Houston area audience. Judging from the turnout Sunday night they would be correct in their assumptions.

Opening for Tears for Fears on this leg of the tour was the California formed veteran band Cold War Kids. Having formed in Fullerton, California 2004, the Indie/Blues Rock band had their most success with the release of their 2015 album Hold My Home with their song "First" having reached the top 5 on the US rock chart. Cold War Kids took the stage with the hot Texas summer sun just starting to reach the top of the hill which the stage was facing. Fortunately for those on stage and the thousands that had arrived early to watch the Cold War Kids, a bank of clouds moved into position to defuse the heat just enough to make it as pleasant as it could possibly be for an upper 90’s outdoor Texas concert. The five-piece band consisting of Nathan Willett on lead vocals and guitar, Matt Maust on bass, David Quan on backing vocals and guitar, Matthew Schwartz on keyboards and backing vocals and Joe Plummer on drums knocked out a tight and energetic 14 song set list. The band had quite a few followers in attendance who stood and sang along to each song from their setlist.

After a stage set change that gave those that had arrived early enough time to venture to one of the Pavilion’s air-conditioned areas or maybe to just get a refill for their favorite ice-cold refreshment, Tears for Fears took the stage promptly at their 9 p.m. scheduled start time.

The founding duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, now 61 and 62 respectively embodied the looks that you might expect the aging New Wave rockers to have for successful stage personas. Roland with the long flowing grey hair with beard and Curt sporting a short cut and styled grey haired were both looking smashing sharp. Both men took turns delivering the songs from their set and each sounded great.

Roland and Curt along with their supporting 4-piece band started the night off with a couple of songs off the latest Tipping Point Album, "No Small Thing" and "The Tipping Point". Third song of the night was the giant favorite "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" from the 1984 multi-platinum album Songs from the Big Chair.

Also included along the setlist were 4 more form the Tipping Point album: "Long, Long, Long Time", "Break the Man", "My Demon's" and "Rivers of Mercy". Moving on through other fan favorites that had the crowd up and singing along, backing vocalist Carina Round made it known that she had a powerful well-suited voice singing "Suffer the Children" and co-singing "Woman in Chains" and "Badman’s Song". The last song of the main set found the crowd on its feet singing along to "Head Over Heels".

After saying goodnight and teasing the fans with a short break Roland and Curt returned with Roland asking the crowd to continue their singing along since the concert was being filmed for future use. Roland then went into a delightful and perfectly well suited for him version of the song "Creep" by Radiohead. The Tears for Fears duo ended the evening with the ever popular song "Shout" which the crowd had no problem belting out line for line until Curt and Roland thanked them for their attendance and wished them goodnight.