Mandalay Bay Beach to be awash in ’80s acts Saturday

Ronald Reagan (twice) and Margaret Thatcher. Michael and Madonna. Chernobyl and Challenger and Just Say No. Famine in Ethiopia, Live-Aid, the Soviets in Afghanistan and the U.S. in Grenada.

Oh, yeah, and music videos, which, if not actually invented during the 1980s, certainly reached their zenith then thanks to MTV.

MTV celebrated its 30th birthday Aug. 1 -- even if the art form that MTV made so popular is harder to find on the channel than intelligence on "Jersey Shore" -- so what better omen does a displaced denizen of the '80s need to revel in the era via "Lost '80s Live" this weekend at Mandalay Bay Beach?

The show will feature several performers who came to prominence during the music-video era and who still perform today:

■ A Flock of Seagulls, the band that got as much pop-culture mileage out of co-founder Mike Score's haircut as it did its songs, which include the group's biggest hit, "I Ran (So Far Away)."

■ The Motels, the Los Angeles New Wave band featuring frontwoman Martha Davis, whose roster of hits includes "Only the Lonely" and "Suddenly Last Summer."

■ Berlin, the band perhaps best remembered for (depending on what's happening in one's love life at any given time) the uber-romantic ballad "Take My Breath Away" from the film "Top Gun" or the steamy "Sex (I'm a...)."

■ Clive Farrington and Andrew Mann, original members of the British New Wave trio When in Rome, best known for the 1988 single "The Promise," which younger listeners might know from the film "Napoleon Dynamite."

■ Tommy Tutone, whose "867-5309/Jenny" inconvenienced lots of people who shared the phone number but weren't named Jenny back in 1982.

■ Animotion, the New Wave band best known for the 1984 hit "Obsession."

■ Boys Don't Cry, the British band whose novelty hit "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" landed the No. 12 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1986.

Say what you will about the '80s, but there's something about the era that won't die, no matter how enthusiastically MTV forsakes music videos to embrace teen moms and moronic partyers.

Now where did we put that vintage Members Only jacket?

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.