The Sisters of Mercy

Many good things have been said about Sisters Of Mercy live performances, and during the height of their fame way back in the 1980’s I imagine they would have been highly regarded.

From the very start of this gig, it just felt as if there was something not right about it, the vocals just didn’t sound right- that’s not to take anything away from frontman Andrew Eldritch’s voice- it was more of a technical problem rather than lack of talent!

Opening track ‘Crash and Burn’ created a flicker of life throughout the audience. The audience didn’t really react much as the Sisters Of Mercy tried to impress with their gothcore anthems.

Andrew Eldritch clearly still thinks he is something special, and during the first track he even took the unprofessional approach of pushing the mike stand into a photographer- Lets be honest- Andrew should be thankful of any attention that he gets.

Not only was there a clear disliking of photographers, but it just seemed as if the band didn’t care about the fans - they had industrial quantities of dry ice to keep the entire band invisible from the audience. Surely the whole point of going to see a band live is to actually see them play live, otherwise fans could just stay in their homes and just put the CD on. The vast amount of smoke was probably supposed to hide the fact that Andrew has aged badly.

One thing that made Sisters Of Mercy so unique was that they were one of the first bands to use a drum machine - known as ‘Doktor Avalanche’ - and it is still used in their live shows today, although ‘Doktor’ just didn’t have that killer sound, if anything it sounded a bit flat. Maybe the Sisters Of Mercy were having a bad night.

The audience came out of their coma-induced state for the big hits such as ‘Alice’ and ‘Temple Of Love’, however as soon as those tracks had been played, quite a few fans started to leave. Who could blame them?

This is the first time I have seen them live, and I’d like to think that they were just having a bad night; one fan in the audience did mention that they are usually so much better live and so maybe they would be great to observe when on form.

My only real disappointment about the show was that it was impossible to see the band on stage. Fans who have paid a fair amount for tickets deserve to at least actually see the band members on stage.

FUTURE GIGS