“And all heads turned cause she was the dream.” – Billy Ocean

Every now and then, a “deal” comes along where you say to yourself “Self, I’d pay (x) amount to go see (fill in the blank), because how many more chances will I have?” and that’s exactly how last Friday night at the Skyline Event Center in Tulsa came about. In February, for $45 each, I bought two tickets for my wife and I on the fifth row to see one Mr. Leslie Sebastian Charles, stage name Billy Ocean. The original performance date was for April, but he had to postpone that show and rescheduled for this past Friday.

At 73 years old, Billy Ocean seems to be well above average in physical condition and still has a nice sound and tone to his voice. He graciously interacted with the crowd and all of the ridiculous “let me get a selfie with Billy” amateur photographers in attendance. I was starting to get a little annoyed with all of the people walking up to the stage and attempting to get selfies with Billy, but he graciously played along with that genuine smile on his face all night long as he peppered the audience with all of his big hits and a total of 14 songs over 90+ minutes.

Seemingly so smooth and so cool, Billy had already established himself as a singer and performer with a few minor hits in his native England prior to 1984 dating back to his first hit, a #2 hit in 1976 called “Love Really Hurts Without You.” Like many growing up in the 80’s, my first exposure to Billy was “Caribbean Queen,” a quintessential up-tempo 80’s hit that I absolutely loved and still do to this day. Billy was already a music industry veteran in 1984 at the age of 34 years when he hit it big in the U.S. with today’s featured video and song.

“I was in search of a good time
Just running my game
Love was the furthest
Furthest from my mind.”

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Billy moved to England when he was 10 and in 2020 was made a member of the MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organizations, and public service outside the civil service. The MBE was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V.

He has seven top 10 singles in the U.S. which includes three #1 hits with today’s video being his first and arguably his biggest. A number one hit in August of 1984 that won Billy a Grammy, it was the song that really broke open Billy’s career, and is personally one of my favorite songs from the decade of the 80’s. Here is the video for the once-titled “European Queen,” changed to “Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)”…

Here is some present-day Billy for those of you interested in how he and his voice have aged. This is my video shot at the Skyline Event Center at the Osage Casino in Tulsa. Still so cool and so smooth, this is one of my favorite 80’s ballads, another number one hit for Billy which came about in July of 1986 – “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)”… and btw, that’s Billy’s daughter on the far left of the backup singers…

Thanks for checking in and thanks for reading, and keep on going Billy!

sincerely,

the80’s