The Tubes bring 'theatrical' stage show back to Pittsburgh

In the early days of MTV, some of the most alluring, eye-catching videos were created by The Tubes, a band with a penchant for performing elaborate stage shows well before their songs became hits.

But the hits would come, starting in 1981 with the release of “The Completion Backward Principle,” which included the popular singles “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” and “Talk to Ya Later.”

The Tubes are back in Pittsburgh Friday for an 8 p.m. show at Jergel’s Rhythm Grille in Warrendale. The first half of the concert will feature the band performing that landmark album in its entirety.

Before they made it big in the ’80s, The Tubes emerged from San Francisco’s post-hippy art scene with songs like the uproarious “White Punks on Dope,” described as an “absurd anthem of wretched excess.” At that time, lead singer Fee Waybill said the band had a desire to create art for art’s sake.

“We wanted to be a performance art band. We wanted to do this spectacular show, we wanted to do something greater than Alice Cooper, greater than David Bowie,” said Waybill in a phone interview from Los Angeles.

Spectacular is certainly one way to describe it. With everything from trapeze artists to topless dancers, Tubes concerts were crowd-pleasers. But then one person’s art is another person’s lasciviousness. In the early years, Waybill and fellow band members were frequently threatened with being thrown in jail for “lewd” behavior.

But the band persevered, working with producer, director and choreographer Kenny Ortega, of “Newsies” and “High School Musical” trilogy fame, to put together theatrical stage presentations.

“The guy was brilliant and he created this whole persona of The Tubes,” said Waybill. “We sold out wherever we went. The place went nuts. That was the good. The bad was they took pictures instead of buying albums.”

That would change with “The Completion Backward Principle” and the 1983 release of the “Outside Inside,” album which coincided with the rock video boom happening on MTV. The video for “She’s a Beauty” helped land the song in the top 10.

“MTV was pivotal for us and really helped us,” said Waybill. “(But) it became a little restrictive. We wanted to do a video for ‘She’s a Beauty’ and make it like the movie ‘Freaks,’ one of our all-time favorite movies. We wanted to have the Chicken Woman and the Sausage Boy and the Bearded Lady and they wouldn’t let us do it.”

Meanwhile, The Tubes had peaked. The follow-up album “Love Bomb” did not do as well as its predecessors and Waybill took a sabbatical from touring. “We kind of got burned out there for a while and we had to break up and just kind of come down,” said Waybill.

Despite his involvement in other projects, and being on the verge of turning 70, he’s excited about being back on the road with The Tubes.

Though the lineup has changed over the years, it currently includes Waybill and members Roger Steen, Prairie Prince, Rick Anderson and David Medd.

“I love performing and I’m so lucky. My voice has held up. We haven’t lowered the key on songs. Our players, Prairie Prince is one of the best drummers on Earth, Roger is an incredible virtuoso on guitar and we just love it. Everybody is the same way, we can’t wait.”