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Exxile On EuphoriaMar 01 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If you have even the slightest opportunity to see The Sisters of Mercy live, DO IT!!!!!! It was the best show I've been to ever.
I've been listening to The Sisters of Mercy for 3/4 of forever it would seem. Andrew Eldritch's deep dark voice does not go unrecognized by any overgrown 80's goth....Though Andrew himself claims that The Sisters are not a goth band they have long since been "goth" music's posterchildren. The last album that The Sisters of Mercy put out was Vision Thing, which came out in 1990. I couldn't wait to catch them in concert on their Vision Thing tour. They were supposed to hit America with Public Enemy, but the second half of the tour(the half that would have hit my area) was cancelled..(too many riots?) I was devastated, but not half as devastated as I would have been had I known they were going to spend the next 10 years fighting with their record label and that I may not ever see The Sisters of Mercy live...... Then I moved to England. The Sisters (being from England) play live in Europe all the time it would seem, though they mostly play festivals, it happens that they (hopefully) will have a new album out sometime in the next year or two......or three, and so they have begun touring Europe!Exxile On Euphoria. (yes, there really are 2 X's in Exxile) Horror strikes again....or does it? The day that The Sisters of Mercy were playing Rock City in Nottingham also happened to be the night before my daughter started her first day of school. How could they do that to me????? Of course I couldn't go that night... The rain in England has been attrocious this year...Floods everywhere and damage all over the country due to flooding. The show was cancelled. (I never even knew....once I knew I couldn't go, I just went on my way, sulking) I happened upon The Sisters of Mercy official homepage( Andrew himself is the webmaster!)sometime in January and I saw that they were scheduled to play Rock City on February 18, 2001!! That was it. Nothing was going to stop me this time. Fate had spoken. Stop babbling and get on with the show Sunday February 18, 2001 at Rock City Music Hall, Nottingham England...Doors open at 7:30! The tickets said nothing about whether anyone was opening for The Sisters or not...So we were all in the dark. We got there way before 7:00 to get a good place inside. One thing that I noticed and found very comforting was that there were not a lot of young kids at this show. These were hard-core Sisters' fans. There were people waiting in line who were as old as 50!!! I would say the average age was 30. It's been a long time (if ever) since I've been to a concert full of old folks!!! But now that I fit in that category (at 29) I felt right at home. These were people the same age as me, who had probably been listening to The Sisters of Mercy for as long as I had! Rock City is what I would consider an average size venue. It's a dark dirty club. Everything is painted black inside so that the lighting does what it's supposed to do. They have 3 bars inside. One to either side of the stage and one upstairs on the balcony. The stage was not that big. The ceiling was oddly low, I felt and it seemed rather cramped with all the Towers of speakers and lights and amplifiers. The first band on stage (if you could call them that) was called David Thomas and Two Pale Boys. I don't know if this was supposed to be a joke or not, but they were somewhere between bizarre and awful. At first I though they sounded kinda cool...Maybe a mix between The Residents and Dead Can Dance. But then the guy started "singing" Half of his song was him hacking and wheezing into the microphone...They played for about 20 minutes. Next came what I would consider to be the real opening band, Tin Star. They were quite cool. In fact, Tin Star member Tim Bricheno had been a part of The Sisters Of Mercy at one time, before joining Tin Star. No wonder Andrew picked them to play! While they were not as dark sounding as The Sisters of Mercy, they were a perfect opening band as they definitely set the mood...There music was very grooving and fresh. They had some great lighting as well. They played somewhere between 30-45 minutes Enter Fog After Tin Star, the fog machines ran on overkill. The fog was so thick you would have needed a machetti to cut it! The crowd stood in anticipation...breathing in the heavy artificial fog as the a blue light illuminated the fog...It seemed an eternity....Where were the Sisters? We knew they were there....But we could see nothing but the blue illumination....Then the guitars broke out......The crowd roared....I had the perfect view. I was in the front with nothing between me and the band except for a short barrier and one short girl who's head was in the perfect place to hide my camera. It was forever before the fog cleared enough to See Andrew center stage with his short blonde little boy haircut and his leather jacket with a giant Chicago Police patch sewn on the arm. He was less than 10 feet away from me and I was hyped. The crowd was hyped. As The Sisters started playing Dominion/Mother Russia The crowd immediately fell into the groove...and they never stopped. The rest of the show was nearly a blur...it was ecstacy. They played many of my favourites, such as This Corrosion and More They also played several songs that I did not know. New ones for their upcoming album??? I hope so, because they were every bit what I would expect from a new Sisters album! The lighting (done by the infamous Guru) was every bit as fantastic! It set the mood perfect for The Sisters of Mercy's dark yet ever so grooving songs. I will admit that as far as pictures go, the lighting for Tin Star was much better as they used less fog and more lights at a time. However the lighting for The Sisters of Mercy was nothing to complain about. Their lighting technique is somewhat different from most "rock" bands. They typically use no more than 2 colours at a time (not per show, but per a moment in time) and they do not have a spotlight or overhead light to illuminate the band members. The lights (combined with that thick fog)are more like coloured clouds that take over the area, creating an atmosphere of mystery and divinity....That's exactly what you are left feeling. Like you have just witnessed some sort of divine act. They must have played over an hour and then played an encore. The crowd was great and there is nothing like being crushed by hundreds of people swaying and moving to the same beat as your eyes are locked onto the stage....The entire show was united....one force not be reckoned with. It was absolutely incredible. I left Rock City feeling exhillerated and completely satisfied. A lifetime of waiting, finally fulfilled and it was worth every moment of those 10 years I waited to see The Sisters of Mercy live. Of course by morning I was quite sore from the aforementioned 100's of people crushed against me and the stage barrier....but even that was worth it...it even felt good! I've seen many concerts..The Cure, Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy, Nine Inch Nails, Pigface, Billy Idol, David Bowie, EMF, The Dead Milkmen, Lolapalooza 1-4, Faith No More......so on and so forth....But The Sisters of Mercy has been absolutely the best show ever! If you would like to see pictures from this particular concert, visit my Sisters of Mercy/ Tin Star concert photo gallery on my webpage at http://www.geocities.com/vcrimson/photos.html I also recommend visiting the Official website. They've got quite a few awsome pictures as well, plus everything you could ever want to know about The Sisters of Mercy. It can be found at http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com  |
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