Live: The Sisters Of Mercy

I still remember the very first festival of my life and how a friend of mine and I stuck knee-deep in mud at the M'era Luna 2002: It had poured with rain, our tent was completely destroyed, we were soaked to the bone and shaking with cold we had no other choice than seeing the show of that day's headliner, The Sisters Of Mercy. Well, "seeing": Except fog, there wasn't really anything to see. Almost a bit shocked, we asked ourselves why this band is regarded as the ultimate Gothic act... Only eight months later - and now in the proud possession of the Best Of album "A Slight Case Of Overbombing" - I found myself at a concert of their "Smoke And Mirrors" tour and even though I was there for their support act Sulpher and not for them, the main act surprised with just a little bit fog and a great show, contrary to the name of the tour. Well, this time, Mister Eldritch didn't need to hide behind fog as the cameras of all concert guests were taken away right at the entrance. At that time, mobile phones with camera functions, youtube & Co. were dreams of the future...

Now, eight years later, I went to my first The Sisters Of Mercy concert in Finland, knowing that the show can be everything between "awful" and "awesome" - but "All good things come in threes", right? First of all, we were impressed by the loyal fanbase the Sisters have and this applies not only to the age of the fans and all the tattoos of the "Merciful Release" logo in the audience but also to the fact that the fans were travelling from all over Europe, especially from the neighbouring country Sweden. Well, just in November 2011, the Sisters will stop over in Sweden with their "30th Anniversary Tour" and obviously it is too much time to wait for their loyal devotees...

In fact, their concert started with a very stylish light show, mainly kept in a blue shade of colour. Andrew Eldritch and his two current guitarists entered the stage; bass and drums are canned music from a machine called "Doktor Avalanche". With "Ribbons", they chose an opener from their so far last studio album "Vision Thing" and - believe it or not - its release is more than 20 years in the past!

There are numerous myths about the reasons, starting with "Andrew Eldritch wasn't happy with his back then record company and didn't want to release anything for them anymore" through to "Andrew Eldritch doesn't want to release anything on an indie label and requires an advance of several million US dollars before he will record anything". The truth might be somewhere in between.
And how about his own label "Merciful Release"? Is it also "too indie" for new releases? The legendary Andrew Eldritch is known as an eccentric and so he appeared today in a neon yellow polo shirt with a neon orange collar, probably to emphasize once again that he respectively The Sisters Of Mercy don't (want to) have anything to do with Gothic and to distance themselves from its scene. Strange if you consider the fact that most of his devotees belong to exactly that scene. His own long dark hair were already vanished when we stood in the mud of Hildesheim and also the black leather clothes seem to be banished from the wardrobe a few years ago.
So if you attend a Sisters concert these days, you shouldn't expect an Andrew Eldritch you know from music videos such as "More". A change in the style of clothing doesn't matter that much if a frontman would do a bit more than just standing at the mic stand. To be able to entertain by the latter you have to have at least some charisma - and also that kind of charisma has vanished a long time ago, even if Mister Eldritch wears sunglasses. The only person who knows how to rock to songs like "Crash And Burn", "Dominion / Mother Russia", "Will I Dream", "Alice", "Anaconda", "Vision Thing" and "This Corrosion" is Ben Christo, one of his two guitarists, who steals the show from him without big efforts.

It is very unfortunate that these gems of Gothic Rock and timeless classics are partly performed so passionless by the singer. According to this, ballads like "Something Fast", "Flood II" and "Rain From Heaven" were rather boring although Eldritch is still in the prime of life when it comes to his voice as songs like "A Rock And A Hard Place" clearly show. And all that despite the insufficient sound which made it hard to recognize even very familiar songs like "Detonation Boulevard" until its chorus!
Therefore the fog was tolerable tonight; we were able to enjoy the felicitous, very colourful light show. The real action was anyway provided by the audience which was clapping along synchronously on compositions like "Lucretia My Reflection" or additionally cheered while "More" was played.
Later on, the fans didn't give in until the band came back on stage twice to play several encores. A special amusement was caused by a fan who was presumably drunk and didn't stop to shout "First And Last And Always" until that song was played, too. In consideration of that much support, even the cool Mister Eldritch couldn't deny to say "Thank you for coming!" after the very last encore "Temple Of Love"...
It would have been nice to be able to respond to it with a "You're welcome!" but our feelings were just too mixed afterwards.
From the musical point of view, The Sisters Of Mercy are regarded as legends with reason. If there is somewhere "the evil G-word" or not... It is a little luxury problem other musicians would be glad to have. After more than two decades without any album releases and tickets at a price of almost 40 € for shows which partly offers nothing but "fog machine action", Andrew Eldritch can be more than happy about having such a loyal following as he won't gain any new fans in this way.
Why I am so sure about that? Because I heard my own story about their M'era Luna performance too often from other people as well - but they were talking about M'era Luna performances from other years. And why they are performing more or less on a regular basis at one of THE Gothic festivals if the scene is so repugnant to them?!?
The answer might be obvious: Because they still live on former glory which mainly took place in the very same scene. At times when record companies have to fight for their existence every day, it's quite improbable that one of them has some millions to invest in one single record deal. Nostalgia is a nice thing - but life has moved on...

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