I have never been so grateful to live in Mississauga. what follows is a bitter, bitter entry about my evening, which greatly contrasts the excitement I felt prior to arriving in Kitchener.

What a fucking hole in the ground. and I'm not going to apologize to any one who lives there because if you do, and if you're anything like me, get the fuck out of that place while you can. I have never in my life been so unimpressed by a group of citizens in my entire life, and I really would have rather waited for a bus for nine and a half hours in the freezing cold than be in Kitchener for 3.5 milliseconds.

The opening band, 100 Mile House, sucked my ass. They all had the same leather pants and were just a really terrible band. the singer kept giving the devil sign with his hands (they weren't a scary band or anything) and asked the audience about four thousand times if they were feeling "EVIL" on "DEVIL'S NIGHT". Grow the fuck up, you washed out rock star wannabes. And whose fucking cock did you have to suck for anyone to let you within a hundred MILES of the cult, nevermind share a STAGE with them? of course, everyone there was LOVING them, and it just killed me. mullets and everything, everywhere.

I'm sorry, but I'm just REALLY bitter. deep inside I really love mullets, but I'm all about bashing the Kitchener stereotype at the moment.

So once the Cult started playing their early 90s mullet singles, everyone was getting rowdy, on account of they were all wasted out of their fucking skulls. the place was also packed beyond capacity (seemingly TYPICAL of Kitchener) so it was impossible to escape the CROWD SURFING and MOSHING and PUSHING. like everyone wanted to be right at the front. fucking take it easy. everyone was so bloody PUSHY. and who the fuck crowd surfs at the cult? and the "mosh pit" (I thought they became extinct in 1993) turned into a gigantic brawl. this one guy kept crowd surfing.. just JUMPING on people and hoping they'd lift him up. and after jenny was kicked in the face by him she dug her nails into his back and tried to strangle him with his necklace. and it's so strange for me to justify this kind of destruction but I felt it too. my ass was grabbed by about ninety four different hands which made me want to vomit, and i did a lot of elbowing and standing firm in my place so that no one could get past me and such. but anyway, when this asshole was crowd surfing closer and closer to the security barrier, the security guard would just PUSH HIM BACK into the crowd. where the fuck were these guys trained? you're SUPPOSED to pull him over the barrier and make him WALK back into the crowd.

Anyway, that guy ended up getting kicked out and we saw him outside on our way to the car and Jenny called him an asshole, which he was, and he mentioned something about Ian (the singer from the Cult) punching him when he was given the boot. we told him he deserved it. Which he did.

And excuse all the caps, but really, I'm so TENSE right now it's not even funny.

I tried to shrug it all off by giving love-eyes to the bass player (who the fuck knows what his name is) while seductively licking my lips and such. I just stared at him the whole time and he kept making eye contact with me, and then he'd smile, which was exciting. No love-eyes, which was very sad, but I didn't take it personally because he was busy being a rock star. I figured I'd never be that close to him ever again in my life nor do I care to be, especially in fucking KITCHENER, by the way, so I decided that I'd entertain myself by staring at him and licking my lips seductively once him and I made eye contact. so much fun. I can't even tell you.

first thing I forgot to mention: this radio guy came on the stage after 100 Mile House finished their awful set to tell us that he wanted to hear us chant "cult! cult! cult!" before the Cult came on so that they felt welcome. whatever! but of course everyone went nuts there, it was unreal. they kept starting to chant "cult! cult! cult!" for five whole seconds before it died. it was hilarious. but then this guy started throwing 97.7FM tshirts into the crowd. people were FIGHTING over them. this one guy and girl had a good grip on one of the tshirts, about two feet away from us, and the broad starting crying and BEGGING the guy, saying "oh, pretty please, pretty please," with this sad whiny face. it was so pathetic. what was even MORE pathetic, though, was the GUY who got all sore about not getting the tshirt. and so the guy on stage kept going on and on about how we need to make the cult feel WELCOME.

Anyway, I'm sure Ian and the rest of the band felt real welcome when people started beating each other senseless for a better view of the stage.

But before he started to play a song whose name I don't know, Ian mentioned something about the Cult's record label not wanting them to perform said song because it mentioned terrorism. But Ian played it anyway because he said it wasn't about that, blah blah blah. and these two total fuckwits in front of me started chanting "osama! osama! osama!" while pumping their fists in the air.

What was WRONG with these people?!

Then this drunk bastard tried to inform me on my way out that I was swearing too much. God forbid I say the f-word compulsively after I've experienced THE WORST concert of my life. especially when in Kitchener it seems to be perfectly acceptable to kick the shit out of each other in the name of rock and roll.

Oh! but at the end we saw this guy trip on this step and fall right on his face, and we decided that the whole thing was worth thirty bucks, just seeing that. these other guys who I think were from Toronto (they kept talking about Toronto, anyway) said that the guy tripping made them glad they came. and it was CRAZY, because you could totally tell who was NOT from Kitchener. Like this guy in a yellow tshirt had a disgusted look on his face so I tried to find out if he was from Toronto. He wasn't. He was from Ottawa. that poor bastard came all the way from Ottawa to Kitchener to see the cult. but he was also at the Toronto show so him and I gushed about it for about one second before I couldn't stand to be in the damn place any more.

The whole thing is really very sad because the cult played an incredible set and they were brilliant, though I think Ian may have been on something, i don't know. but thanks to the assholes that Kitchener seems to breed, the entire experience was miserable.

For hard rock energy, Cult is the real thing

Ian Astbury, lead singer of the Cult, shakes a tambourine as the group performs at the Lyric in Kitchener on Tuesday night.

It happened two thirds of the way through Tuesday's Cult concert at Kitchener's Lyric nightclub. The kind of moment every band, every musician, every artist, strives for. A moment where, for a brief, flickering instant, the audience and artist become one, melded in a connection so pure, so involved, that no amount of adjectival pontification can do it justice.

In the case of the Cult -- arguably the best hard rock band of the '80s --- it happened when they launched into their best, but not biggest hit, She Sells Sanctuary.

No sooner had guitarist Billy Duffy cranked out the opening riff to the anthem -- which rivals U2's New Year's Day for sheer, soaring inspiration -- than the crowd went, for lack of a better term, nuts.

Eighteen hundred bodies swaying in unison, 1,800 arms pumping the air, 1,800 voices roaring so loudly you'd swear a freight train was coming through the wall.

AEROSMITH COULDN'T COMPETE

"And the world,'' wailed Ian Astbury, feeding on the crowd's energy, twisting and contorting around the microphone. "And the world turns around.''

It was -- only for an instant, mind you -- Woodstock, Lollapallooza and Beatlemania rolled into one.

I'm not surprised Aerosmith cancelled their headlining gig with the Cult on Monday in Toronto. Illness notwithstanding, how could such manicured, castrated rock phonies compete with the raw power of that single moment?

Having said this, Tuesday's concert was far from flawless. Astbury's voice, a once-piercing wail that easily cut through Duffy's sonic riffs, seemed patchy and strained. It didn't help that some idiot turned the distortion knob to 11.

Nor did the 39-year-old's foul-mouthed tirades against everything from his record company to mope-rockers Nickelback -- who he seems to harbour a particular disdain for -- do much for his image as a transcendental guru yearning for inner peace.

"It's like the guy who used to deliver pizza is now a musician,'' he grumbled of the Canrock chart toppers. "Fuck off.''

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

And never have 1,800 people stood so stone cold silent as when the band rolled out songs from their first album in seven years, Beyond Good And Evil.

But this last point, perhaps, is nitpicking.

After all, Margaret Mitchell never topped her novel, Gone With the Wind. Orson Welles never outdid his first film, Citizen Kane.

And if the Cult's new material lacks originality and punch, so what?

In their late '80s heyday -- before they were blown off the charts by Nirvana and the onset of grunge -- no band played crunching metal-pop with trippy, nonsensical lyrics, monster guitar hooks and fuzzy psychedelic overtones like the Cult.

Not Guns 'N Roses. Not Van Halen. Not even AC/DC.

The Cult were Spinal Tap sent to college. Dumb enough to appropriate the culture of native Americans for their 1991 album Ceremony -- which prompted a lawsuit or two -- but smart enough not to take themselves too seriously.

Tuesday's show was no exception.

For every Sun King (baby), which Astbury reminded the crowd was about "a special war inside yourself," there was a Lil' Devil. For every Fire Woman, there was a Peace Dog.

And for every Edie (Ciao Baby) -- one of the few hard rock power ballads that doesn't suck -- there was a Love Removal Machine, perhaps the best dumb-but-brilliant rock tune of all time.

In a world dominated by airbrushed pop cut-outs like Britney, J. Lo and the Backstreet Boys, that was enough.

I couldn't wait to see the Cult for my second time ever!! I've been a fan since 1985 and they have never come to my town. Back when there was no internet like there is today, and if you wanted to catch the Cult in another city you would need to know the tour stops. Even then it would be tough to get tickets and so forth. That god for this site!!!!! I've been patiently checking the tour stops on this site for a year almost to see when the Cult would come anywhere near me. So we (my wife and I) drive four hours to Kitchener to see them and I wanted to make sure we got to the doors at the Lyric in time to get T-Shirts and front row stage. To my amusement when we got there only 45 minutes before the doors opened there was only 10 people in line. Lucky for us!! When we got the T-Shirts were a little disappointing, they were from the Electric album cover, just a tad old!! I've not seen the new tour shirts from Beyond Good And Evil yet. Do they exist? Why would the Cult short themselves shirts to sell? Anyhow we made it right up front for the show. Opening with Rise of course (that opening riff is huge sounding) the Cult played great. Ian's voice didn't get through Billy's vocals at times, I think due to a long tour already and the volume on Ian's mic maybe a little too low. The Cult like to do a rock and roll show where everyone sings and dances in unison, like a brotherhood if you will. However there are always a couple of idiots in every crowd, and this one guy kept crowd surfing repeatedly. This guy went up like 6 or 7 times and the crowd and the band were getting annoyed!! Finally he kicked out and Ian made a funny remark about how fat he was surfing on us. That was not the last of him yet thought! Finally at the very end of the concert there was a fight and when the Cult finished their last song early (Love Removal Machine) they did not really do a standing line-up ovation, they just left quick to get the fight broken up. I know this is a hockey town, but keep that stuff on the ice or in the ring. What losers! Speaking of losers, here's the biggest loser yet. Remember there was a guy crowd surfing too much. Well somehow after the concert he got back by the tour bus and attacked Ian! Great security! Ian defended himself and punched the guy in the puss. Great for Ian. I talked to security and they said they did not arrest the kid and that he got what was coming to him (maybe they worked him over a little?). I still think a jail cell would have been good for him though! Well lucky for us Ian still had faith in his fans and as we waited outside the tour bus after Matt Sorum signed stuff and the bassist finally Ian came out and we met him! Unreal! He signed stuff for me and my wife and spoke about the guy who attacked him. He was a little shaken up understandably. To the guy who had caught Ian's tambourine, we'll send the pictures when you call us.

Thanx,

Rise
Lil' Devil
...
...
Love Removal Machine