Houston, Texas, The Summit
Opening For: Billy Idol
I happened to be in Houston, visiting relatives, and my aunt got my brother and me
tickets to the Billy Idol concert with The Cult opening (we were so-so on Idol but
we already loved The Cult). The band came on stage with a ton of energy, but the
Summit's acoustics were pretty bad - the music was so distorted that I didn't even
recognize "Bad Fun" (had to sit and think about it after the show to figure out
which song it was). The next tune was "Memphis Hip Shake", which I only knew for
certain for the repetition of the word "shake" at the end. I guess the mixing guys
needed a little time to figure out the sound, because the concert got much better
from there. Ian did too much swearing at the crowd in an attempt to
shame/cajole/convince us to make more noise ("I thought this was Texas. I'd heard
you people were *%&$ crazy. Come on!"). Since it was my first Cult show, I was in
awe regardless. They played virtually all of Electric, and a good handful of Love
tunes. They finished with an encore of Born to be Wild and Love Removal Machine.
To be honest, I was still trying to get used to the new sound of Electric before
I saw this show, but after hearing it all live, I was completely sold.
Jeremy Chapman
Setlist:
Bad Fun
Memphis Hip Shake
...
Born To Be Wild
Love Removal Machine