House Of Blues, Los Angeles, California
Opening band: New American Shame
The last time I saw Ian was with the Holy Barbarians at a tiny club in Costa Mesa,
CA a few years back when he proclaimed "The Cult was pretentious and is dead" to a
small but enthusiastic crowd during their set. Now, its 1999 and he's grown his hair
long again (thankfully) and with Billy they have put together a great group of
musicians to tour as The Cult. I saw them play a great if somewhat predictable set at
the House of Blues in Sillicon Valley- er, Hollywood on Saturday night with a sold out
and rowdy audience. The setlist was identical to what they have been playing on most
of the shows so far the past few months. No surprises if you have checked any of the
setlists for recent shows. Highlights were a nice, drawn out version of Sweet Soul
Sister, probably the best version I've ever heard them play in the 7 or 8 times
I've seen them live since 1985 and a version of The Phoenix that was a rare
showcase for current bassist Martyn LeNoble. The band is VERY tight, everybody is
in topnotch form including Ian who is singing great despite the long string of
shows together at the Hollywood HOB. The band sound very much like they did during
the Electric tour in 1987. Very dry and sparse but also quite powerful. The sound was
also excellent, no shock there as the HOB has a great PA and the mix was perfect. With
all this said, the show did have a few small drawbacks, one being the amount of assholes
up in front who continually got up on stage trying to hug Ian, sing into the mic or
just strut around like they were somebody. Ian handled that stuff pretty well except
one instance where a fight broke out on the left side during Fire Woman and
he spent the entire last half of the song crouched down watching the bullshit, pissed
off and not singing as the band played the last half of the song instrumentally. Also,
during Love Removal Machine, a few hands almost got a solid grip on Billy's
guitar which really pissed him off. Really, a great show with the above little
incidents as a small exception and the predictable setlist. Considering that the
band is playing a full week's worth of shows at the same venue, you'd think they would
mix it up a bit but it hasn't happened. Hearing the singles and best known tunes from
Love, Electric and Sonic Temple is cool but come on, both Ceremony and The Cult had
some great tunes (Heart Of Soul, White, Coming Down, Star)
that would be much more welcome then stuff like New York City and In The
Clouds. Hell, play a B-Side like Zap City or play the Steve Brown arrangement
of Electric Ocean! OK, I'm being greedy... Also, a longer show would be nice.
This one clocked in at about 80 minutes and it was the full set they have been playing
everywhere.
Thomas Bell - sntbell@mail.earthlink.net
I found a ticket on the street for a decent price and made my way in to the
HOB. I made my way up to where Nancy had staked out her territory, as
usual, right in front of Billy. About into the third song Ian ripped a hole
in his snakeskin leathers at the knee and got some tape and taped them up.
The crowd was pretty wild tonight, some fighting but lots of people trying
to get on stage. At one point Ian stopped singing during Fire Woman and
started yelling at a guy who was fighting, afterward he asked to get the guy
out of there and asked that if you were going to do that kind of thing not
to even bother coming out. They played fantastic as usual this tour, Billy
had to change his guitar once because of a broken string. The encore was a
bit different tonight only in that Ian came out with half of his face
painted red and a Nashville Pussy t-shirt on. During Love Removal Machine
at the last bit, Billy was going at it and someone jumped up on stage right
in front of him and Billy tried to push him off but the guy pushed back and
Billy fell on his side, he got up and ran back with his fist clenched
looking not all too happy. Another great show altogether.
Adam Garcia Latinochrome@hotmail.com
Bare bones rock & roll. Nuff said. Except for when are the coiming back?...(or
perhaps we'll have to track them abroad!).
Gofur