“Everybody Shouts on “I Love Lucy” Pee Wee Reads the Evening News, a pre-owned song or a secondhand Uzi, everybody’s got a job to lose, here come the golden oldies”.
Was the opening line to the Sisters Of Mercy opening song “Doctor Jeep”, written over 30 years ago, about the American culture, media, and how we get our news, somehow the song is more relevant today than when it was written. Welcome to “The Golden Oldies” The Sisters of Mercy are on their way through a world tour, and they stopped in Salt Lake City for the first time since 1991. I was at that show, which was legendary to all who went, and I have seen them since, most recently while on work assignment in Germany in January.
If you have followed them which I have since 1987’s “Floodland” then you know what they will give us live.
Opening Band
Blaqk Audio.
I had no idea who Blaqk Audio was. I bumped into my mate Jeff who worked at a local venue I have shot at over the years, and he was rather excited for their set, explaining that these guys were members of AFI, 5 albums deep into this project.
They are in the vein of AFI, but I would describe them as follows: If Erasure was moderately goth, with the vocals from Apotgyma Berzerk, and a tinge of Alphaville. They were a big surprise, and good, they worked the crowd, as the vocalist Dave Havok bantered with the audience. He was very intense as he sang but kept the crowd lively and took every opportunity to thank us for being such a devout crowd over the years and to say how grateful they were for being on the road with such a legendary band as The Sisters of Mercy. Next time you see their name on the bill, you REALLY will love Blaqk Audio.
The Sisters of Mercy.
The stage had the lighting cages, in towers with camouflage wrapped around them, as well as the “Doktor Avalanche” booth with the “Operator”, and drum machine also covered with it. The “Operator” Chris Catalyst went behind the panels and fired up the beats while the guitarist ripped out the opening riff of “Doctor Jeep”, and Andrew Eldritch walked out to cheers, and began the show with the line “Everybody shouts on I Love Lucy”. Immediately for Salt Lake City, the absence from April 10th, 1991 til now was filled, and they cranked out a few verses of “Doctor Jeep” to the 3rd bridge suddenly Ben (The guitarist) flew into a key change, and Kai sang the chorus of “On Detonation Boulevard”, the time change was tight, and the finished the two song opener.
In Germany Andrew Eldritch was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, tonight he was in a sleeveless top, his head shaved, and of course sunglasses.
By now so many of us had collected bootlegs of the tour (they are everywhere online) so a lot of us knew the unreleased material, starting with “Don’t Drive On Ice”, sounding properly out of the Floodland era, had having a dance-able beat.
I was allowed into the photo pit for songs 3-5, getting my pics with “Ribbons” probably my fave song off the 1990s “Vision Thing” the last album of new material. I was a bit caught in the hypnotic groove of this one, and just casually took some photos while Andrew stepped out of his typical low droning vocals to give us the intense like as if sung by Robert Smith of ” The Cure” , “BUT SHE LOOKED GOOD IN RIBBONS!!!! So just walk on in”. “Ribbons” live never gets old, and tonight was no exception.
With a simple cymbal tap beat coming from Dr. Avalance and Ben kept motioning us to make more noise, the guitar riffs began to build on top of the drums, so we knew were into “Alice”. Andrew was singing almost beneath the guitar, very different than we have heard that song done live for the last almost 40 years.
I finished my time in the pit with “Summer” some new material that had developed on the tour. On earlier dates, the natives were restless with the new material, but now it seems to work well putting these songs in between some classics. Right before I left the pit I yelled at the guitarist “Ben, give me a good one, make it pretty” he smiled and gave me a good rock-star pose. Ben Christo is a god on the guitar, I have known his previous work with Nathan Gray.
With “Dominion / Mother Russia” from “Floodland” living up to everyone’s expectations, a staple for live performances, and on almost every bootleg I have ever heard. They then launched into several songs we would have expected to be on “The New Album”, as follows: “I Will Call You”, We Are The Same”, “Quantum Baby” and then the instant classic “Eyes of Caligula”. I am sure you will be able to find some great live recordings of them out there and when you hear “Eyes” you will understand why we have been waiting so long for the new material. This song is the updated version of the entire zeitgeist of the “Vision Thing” album, starting with Palestine, to the tunnels through the landscape of Israel, to what I imagine a young Palestinian girl “Wrapped in sugar for her pain, “NO” she says, “I’m wearing stains”, and what think was a wedding, cut short, a one-sided view of a country “No “New Jerusalem” there’s no us, it’s only them, this is not my map at all”, then on to what I experienced living in Rotterdam Holland in 1997, playing soccer with mates, and finding discarded syringes on the grass near the benches in the park. Saying “Eyes of Caligula look on”.
In the 30+ years of listening to The Sisters, and diving into Andrew’s lyrics, most people call it depressing, gloom, and doom music, I always found the lyrics mostly full of biting commentary, calling out the social and political situation, but this time, with these lyrics, I actually felt pain and despair. This song was also written before the October 7th launch of the conflict in Israel / Palestine. This song gave voice to the pain of so many people, helpless in the face of those who can do something to make a difference, just looking on, indifferent to the shitshow innocent people are living through. A total banger on this one, Andrew Eldritch has given us plenty to think about this time around.
On the turn of a dime, the string arrangement from “MORE” and the punters went wild. Most of the punters that night had been to the last gig they played in SLC, 33 years ago, and as legendary as that gig was for anyone who went, the two complaints on the setlist were the absence of “More” or “Doctor Jeep” we were hard pressed to find bootlegs with either for quite a while. Opened with “Doctor Jeep” and then we finally got it, and this time “MORE” was “enough”.
Mixing up the setlist with a new song “But Genevieve” was followed by the 1990s “I Was Wrong” which was in a different position from the gig in Germany. A song that I would have loved to have heard in 1991, but really didn’t start getting plays until when they kicked up tours again in 2019, so this was a fantastic one to insert into the set, pretty much any place.
They played “Here” and “When I’m on Fire” both getting played on the new sets and growing with the punters, as somehow we are waiting to hear recorded versions of these songs, each evoking a different feeling and still capturing the essence of “The Sisters Of Mercy”, as they closed the first part of the set with “Temple Of Love”, with the entire venue 3000 strong dancing along to it. The lights turned a strange blue, purple, red, and even pink all around the strange camouflage that wrapped around the equipment on the stage.
The band left the stage, while the venue continued cheering, and everyone was wondering what we would get for an encore. They were back for a while, longer than most bands would make us wait, and everyone knew that they were going to hear more, I personally think the band did it just to ramp up the anticipation.
With the shadow of Chris Catalyst coming back to the console, and Ben and Kia’s shadows were barely visible, the synthetic beats tapped out and the ever-familiar bass line of “Lucretia” rang out, and the punters went wild. I know this bassline well because it was the first one I learned outside of the New Order / Joy division catalog. Andrew sang this one in higher registers than on the album, giving it a very different take, and it was fabulous to hear it this way.
Everyone was almost satisfied, we could have gone for another 5 songs, and The Sisters finished off the evening with “This Corrosion” the punters loud enough that it could have counted as a singalong.
All in all, this was one of the best gigs I have seen of theirs, and I can say the sound was a hundred times better than the Wiesbaden show I saw in January. All the punters left happy with the set, though we would have had plenty of suggestions, the 30-plus years of waiting was worth it for so many who were in high school the last time they rolled through town.
For now they are taking on Europe on another leg of this what seems to be a very long world tour.
https://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/
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