Gig Review - Peter Murphy - Slade Rooms Aug 2010

Straight to the review I guess...nah...not yet...let me set my position up here first...I saw Bauhaus at the Brum Locarno over 25 years ago, saw them on the Resurrection tour at Brixton and on the last tour at Birmingham Academy - all moments in my life I'll never forget. As a young proto-goth (all the desire, no money for guy-liner) the were my musical awakening. I've seen Peter Murphy solo quite a few times too - including last year's stunning Leamington gig. At 42 years old and an all too frequent gig goer his appearances are ones I actually look forward to. As a songwriter and performer I have found him variable but consistently listenable and he remains absolutely up there with the greats as a lyricist and performer.

Thanks to Kate Southall (Scene and Not Herd)  for a review of the first 2 acts - I simply couldn't be bothered as they were exactly as she described them..

Opening Act: Greenhaus - a lacklustre, static-on-stage band who tried to represent nu-goth but did very well in sounding like Morcheeba singing against a Sneaker Pimps soundtrack (not so bad but the songs lacked any originality) and with no stage presence or catchy track hook in sight, the applause was damp and vacant.

Main Support: Lettie - Imagine your 'Early Years' College Lecturer putting on a lacy Body with a pair of satin trousers and a jacket plastered in the odd buttons from your button-tin. Add crazy cat-lady hair under a 60's fop cap, make-up a 14 year old Scenie would wear with a cheap-end Casio and Fender, no intro or outro of who you are or what you do, some stiff fake Pete M-style copy-cat posturing and you get the picture.
Somebody obviously said it was a good idea to modernise acoustic folky-guitar songs with 'anything electro'. Her music was non-sensical, Am Dram and pretty mediocre. Wrong on all counts.

Peter Murphy - A more upbeat set than the beautifully constructed one from last year and what appeared to be a deliberate move to include more of his love for glam - just a few more Bauhaus tracks too - or he just gauged his audience before the show - a cultured set of gig-goers drawn in from around the UK and local chimps and thugs drafted in purely to spoil the night. High on coke (as they kept telling anyone that would listen) they generated their own mosh pit by punching and thumping anyone and everyone in their vicinity - knocking people over and whooping like some primitive neanderthals and constantly shouting at Pete just to hear their own voices. Initial calm and rational retorts from PM went unlistened to - after which I lost count of the amount of times he then told them to 'shut the f*** up'. Security stood back and laughed, even when people complained to them.
On the gig front - the sound system is what it is - old, muffled and used for £5 entry local indie bands to blow up amps and break microphones and for the desk to be run by ham-fisted local students. It just couldn't cope. Feedback was near omnipresent and PM resorted to just pointing his mic at the speakers in the end - constantly signalling to the engineer to address balance issues. There was just no more headroom in the system to cope. The gig wasn't loud by any stretch of the imagination but the sound was diabolical. PM battled on, won the crowd over with new material, old material and Bauhaus tracks included Stigmata Martyr, Dark Entries, All We Ever Wanted, Kick in the Eye and more. Highlight was an exceptional Subway. Self-assured, witty, chatty and a man so comfortable in his own skin PM remains a joy to watch. His permanent band are tight and excellent backing to this one man tour de force and I look forward to the next tour - just don't come back to Wolverhampton...as one man in the crowd said..."are you all animals down here?"

Slade Rooms - You are nothing more than a money-making training facility for the local college and I feel disgusted you are putting yourselves forward as an £18 a ticket venue with no PA, no ligthing, no discernable customer focus and absolutley terrible policies on security. I have been to the Slade Rooms (including being invited to its opening) a dozen times this year already - never again.

TT

 

Comments

[Scene And Not Herd]

[c’est top] Beautiful writing, indeed a lovely reflection on Pete. I am a new addition to the Peter Murphy 'flossy posse' having had Bauhaus known to me but pass me by for the most part as a kid of the 80's but indeed has been an honour to go see him twice now in 12 months, and review his back catalogue with glee. Thanks for the edu-ma-cation. xxx