The Ritz, Raleigh, North Carolina
Pictures by Elizabeth
Opening band: Billionaire
Well once again, the show was excellent! Despite begging the crowd to liven up and
then giving up by saying, "Well, you paid the money so do whatever the fuck you want",
Ian and the others were quite lively and acted like they were having a great time. Other
than the 4 girls who were dead center in the front row, and who never stopped leaning on
the rail acting as if they were bored silly, the first 3 or 4 rows of people were really
into the show and acted excited. Everyone else looked comatose. Oh well. I think the band
appreciated those of us who were dancing around and expressing our excitement. It seemed
as if Billy was playing just a little bit differently. I don't know enough about music
to put my finger on it, but it was like he was playing in a different key or something. I
really enjoyed it because although the setlist was the same, this show definitely had a
slightly different sound than the others I've seen. They can't come back soon enough to
suit me!
Jason N. - sunking@med.unc.edu
My friends and I attended the show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC on August 4th
and they completely blew me away - I could not believe that not only had they reformed
but they were better than ever! After that show we were ready to go straight to the next
one in Myrtle Beach until we realized we didn't have enough $, especially to get a hotel
at the beach in the height of tourist's season. So we cried and brooded ad wished we were
there & we could see them again. Our wish came true shortly after as more dates were added
to the tour and our hearts soared when we saw Norfolk and Raleigh added for a weekend. Off
we went! They were well worth the drive - the Norfolk show at the Boathouse was good but
the Raleigh show at the Ritz was UNBELIEVEABLE and easily the best show of theirs I've
ever. They all seemed to be really enjoying it and there was soooo much energy in the air
and played most of their best material! Afterwards we hung out near the bus and waited for
them to come out - Matt Sorum came out and hung out with everybody and he is super
friendly & such a doll. He signed autographs for everybody (had him sign my Sonic Temple
tour program) and was extremely funny and entertaining. There was one VERY drunken woman
hanging on the stairs that lead down from backstage to the tour bus who kept bellowing
"BILL-LEE" even tho it was soon evident she had no idea which one was Billy (poor Martyn!).
Matt had fun teasing her in a good natured way and gave her a drum head which he signed
"Matt - Friend of Billy's".... I have no doubt that poor Billy has heard Matt imitating
her most of the way to Florida for the next gig! After a while Ian came out and I finally
got to meet him after all these years - he is super sweet and seemed a bit shy and
reserved but was really nice to everybody - not only did he sign my old program and
some 12"s of mine but he gave me a hug and left me floating on cloud 9! It is wonderful
to finally get to meet some of your heroes and find they are wonderful, down to earth
people who truly appreciate their fans as I've seen a lot of bands that just blow them
off! Huge thanks to Matt and Ian!! Never did see Billy come out - every time he peered
out the door & the woman started bellowing he ducked back in so hopefully he was able to
slip out the back! What a night! Can't wait til their next tour!
Elizabeth Bouras - evb@psychotica.net
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have an official announcement to make: it's all right to rock
again...." --This ever happen to you? You're scheduled to see the same band two nights
in a row, but the first night's awful: the club is a dive, the singer's voice is rough,
over-friendly drunks attach themselves to you and won't scram, the night overall becomes
one great big energy drain? And you're discouraged enough that you think maybe you'll
skip the next night's show and just get some sleep or something? If so, then take my
advice: never, never skip that second show, no matter what. Every time I've hesitated
over this decision, the second show has been something I'll remember forever, utterly
redeeming the night before. It's happened with Marilyn Manson, and it happened 100% and
then some with The Cult on this date in October. The previous night's show had been at
the infamous Boat House, in Norfolk VA. Anyone who's read my Manson reviews knows how I
hate this wretched pighole. (Norfolkians, please note: this refers only to the Boat House,
not to the whole town of Norfolk, which may be lovely for all I know. I've never been there
long enough to see it.) After my last MM experience there I had sworn I would never, ever
set foot in the Boat House again, not for any band notime nohow; and though my roomies
somehow talked me into the Cult gig, that show not only revived my resolution but set it
in concrete. It didn't completely suck, but it did nothing to change my mind (see first
paragraph). More to the point, the band sounded lacklustre, slow and lacking energy, and
Ian's voice was seriously uneven and seemed short of breath, causing him to chop his
phrasing and deliver some songs in virtual shorthand. Not a fun experience. So yes, I
did seriously consider handing in my ticket for the Ritz show and spending the night
channel-surfing at the Red Roof Inn. But I didn't do it... ...thank all gods. Because
The Cult's show at the Ritz on 10/2/99 was a five-star masterpiece, a double-barreled,
diamond-studded, kick-ass classic that ought to be mentioned with love as long as people
ever talk about the best rock concerts of their lives. Crackling with passionate energy,
crammed dizzily full of drum pyrotechnics and gleaming riffs and reckless nonstop
dervish-dancing, it electrified the place end-to-end, and the crowd responded with such a
flood of kinetic enthusiasm that there's no way this machine could slow down. And it did
not. Not for one moment of the set did the energy level drop below pure joy and most of
it was up in the rafters of sheer airborne ecstasy. Proud, high-powered,
diamond-star-haloed rock and roll at its finest, a triumph and a magnificence, cross my
heart. How did The Cult do it? What wellspring did they tap into that transformed them
from the tired-sounding band of Friday night to the inspired firestorm they became on
Saturday? We'll never know, but it's plain that they came determined to go for broke.
In the kind of full-speed-and-damn-the-consequences performance you see maybe twice in a
lifetime, they hurled themselves headlong into the set, holding nothing back. The two
previous shows we'd seen on this tour had started slowly and gradually ascended, as the
crowd pumped energy into the band and they recycled it back, but this one I swear STARTED
at that height. And speaking of recycling energy, lordy mama! can you say "love
transcendence machine"? As the crowd realized what was working here and began to respond
with delight, dancing and singing along, it was almost immediately reflected in The Cult.
Matt and Martyn grinning delightedly, Billy punching out chords with total authority, Ian
colt-kicking and spinning madly, outside gravity, as though he'd never been tired a moment
in his life. Boosted incrementally every time it passed from us to them and back, the
hall's electricity rose and rose to a degree that's almost indescribable, until the whole
band was smiling, irresistibly, until you were laughing almost as much as singing, until
you did literally believe you could do this the whole night long. Every gram of energy you
gave off came back to you double and triple, and there was no way to get tired, and I do
sincerely swear and affirm that I can hardly remember a night when I was so utterly happy.
(And this with the same set of songs that I had hardly been able to stay awake through
the night before! God damn, mercy ma'am! ) Speaking of that set - it's nicely
designed for maximum soul AND firepower. Someone's obviously told them (hades, EVERYONE's
probably told them...) that the last two albums are not beloved of their fanbase, because
the setlist sweeps them discreetly under the rug and goes back to square one. It kicks
off with a stomping Lil' Devil and strides surefootedly from Cult Classic (Rain,
Revolution, She Sells Sanctuary - which Ian proudly describes as "the song
that founded the alternative movement") through _Electric_ (Peace Dog, Wild
Flower, and the rave-up, no-wall-left-standing last encore Love Removal Machine)
and _Sonic Temple_ (Sun King, Edie (Ciao Baby), Sweet Soul Sister,
and crowd fave Fire Woman), with The Witch tossed in as a bonus. Familiar
stuff but obviously held in as much love and respect as when it was new; it's wonderful
how The Cult refuse to condescend or scoff at their original ideals but offer them as
earnestly as ever, Ian singing even the most wide-eyed of the old lyrics with open-handed
sincerity. Such a relief and so sweet in these days of cool irony and sarcastic distance.
They were all superb but I can't stop talking about Ian, who started out pretty as ever
but arose by sheer will to an incandescence formerly known only to saints and devadasis.
He seemed to call on some level of strength reached only by the pure of heart, and just
blazed, staring past the cameras, past the ceiling, dancing, spinning like a cyclone, all
the range and richness of his voice and all his physical strength poured out to the crowd
and the music. No sacrifice is greater than the one that goes consenting, it's long been
said, and Ian willingly threw himself onto this pyre, a performance of self-transcendent
spiritfire like nothing I've ever seen. Awesome, and I mean that literally. ("I am so
completely getting off on this," he panted at one break, and one suspects it was a
breathless attempt to translate angelic possession into hippiespeak.) You look and listen
around you, you see how desperate MTV and the magazines and the record labels are to
convince you that you don't want to rock anymore, that you're bored with guitars and
drums and the power of the voice, that what you really want - if you're a cool person, a
hip person, a person who's on that indefinable cutting edge - is electronics and hip-hop
and sampled patchworked stuff. Microwaved leftovers that almost taste like food.
Frankenstein's-monster music, stitched together from parts of what once lived and shot
with voltage to make it jerk around. But look just a little harder and you'll see that
not everyone buys that line. You'll see that bands MTV and the magazines laugh at are on
the road, getting new record contracts, drawing audiences - OK, not stadium audiences, but
hundreds and thousands of people, enthusiastic and happy crowds night after night. You'll
see that metal thrives on the radio and Goth in the dance clubs despite hundreds of
attempts to proclaim them dead. You'll see that, flat simple, people love rock and roll,
and will always have a place for a band like this and a miracle of a night - like
this one - that shows you why that love is true. This is what it's all about.
Paula O'Keefe - angelynx@spookhouse.net
Happy Birthday to me! Tickets to this show were a gift to me from my wife - one of the
best presents ever! It had been ten years since I'd seen the band, and they did not
disappoint. I have little to add beyond what's already been said by the other
contributors, but the band sounded great. My favorite part was when Ian was introducing
the band - he introduced Billy, who promptly broke into the opening riff of The Manor
Sessions version of Electric Ocean.
Jeremy Chapman
Setlist
Lil' Devil
Sun King
Rain
In The Clouds
Edie (Ciao Baby)
Fire Woman
The Witch
Peace Dog
New York City
Revolution
Sweet Soul Sister
Wild Flower
She Sells Sanctuary
Encore
Phoenix
Love Removal Machine