Good morning. Hello. How are you? #885
A review of the first Sisters of Mercy show in the US in 15 years
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am good. It is 11:40 PM on Wednesday, May 10th. I am about to go to sleep, then wake up, then have Emma drive me home, stopping at an IKEA to pick up some stuff for the new house, and working in the car all day, back in time for a meeting in the afternoon. It’s all gonna work out great.
And since I had said that I wasn’t planning on writing anyway, if you’re not a Sisters of Mercy fan, you can just pretend that happened and I did not write today. And if you are a fan, but don’t want spoilers (though I will try and keep them light), you can do, you can do the same, as Sting says.
But if you want to hear about the Sisters of Mercy show, I am here for you.
The venue (the Filmore Silver Spring) was great. Few nitpicks, but nothing terrible. It would have been nice if they had auxiliary speakers facing the balconies. But honestly, decent venue. I learned that Live Nation bought the Filmore name from the estate of Bill Graham, so that explains why there are suddenly so many Filmores popping up around the country.
As for the band: First, some background. For the last, oh, fifteen years, Andrew Eldritch has been writing new Sisters of Mercy songs. He does not really release them. You can see them on Youtube and whatnot, but I dare say most of the fans do not know them. I know of them, and I suspected, based on other shows he’s played in the last few years, that he was going to play a lot of them. And he did. And I mean a lot. There are different ways to look at this. You can view it as a bit of a bummer that he is not playing more hits. You can view it as kinda cool the artist is still at it. You can wonder why he doesn’t just hurry up and release the album already. All of these are valid! For my part, they were fine, with a few…. questions.
Questions. I have questions. So many questions.
Do you really need to play ten new songs? I mean, I liked them! But here is a proposition: play Mother Russia after Dominion. And don’t make Detonation Boulevard and Doctor Jeep into a medley, play them both in their entirety. That would reduce the number of new songs by 2. Do this at a minimum.
I don’t know, it’s hard. I saw the last show (or close to it) in the US, and Andrew Eldritch did not have ten new songs, so those ten or so slots in the set were filled in by old songs. That is a better thing, in my book. But I must respect the artist.
The crowd seemed to be a Vision Thing crowd. Well, they seemed to be a “More” crowd. “More” got the biggest cheer of the night, which is kind of surprising. Other songs off of Vision Thing did not get as big of cheers, and “In Ribbons” and “Something Fast” are better songs.
The thing is, while I am a Vision Thing fan, I am also a fan of Floodland and First, Last and Always. I would have liked more songs from Floodland. I would have at least liked Mother Russia after Dominion that shit is just bonkers. If I were writing the setlist, I would have put 1959 in there.
While I am a Vision Thing, Floodland and First, Last and Always fan, I am also a fan of the early singles by the Sisters of Mercy, as well as the Sisterhood. I am a fan of the music the Sisters of Mercy have released! Generally speaking, I am a fan of hearing music I know at Sisters of Mercy concerts. This was the first Sisters of Mercy concert I ever went to where I did not know all the music. This is disconcerting to me, but that is probably my problem. This may or may not be your problem.
Also I had forgotten that in “Something Fast” Andrew mentions Baltimore. That was a nice bit of serendipity. The crowd liked that. Never thought I’d see the Sisters in Baltimore. Ish.
The mix. The mix was bonkers! Was it the club? Was it where we were seated? Was it an artistic choice? I legitimately do not know! I do not recall Andrew Eldritch being so low in the mix at past Sisters shows, though reviews from recent Europe and Australia tours make comments to this effect. So I guess Andrew just wants to disapper into the music? Okay! That is sad, but that is his choice I guess. I could hear him, but not very well. Most of the time. But some of the time you could. And he sounded good! I do not know why he would want to hide his voice.
Then we must talk about the absurdly loud backing vocal by one of the guitarists. Just way too loud. Sometimes when the guitarist and Andrew were singing together it sounded awesome, like the guitarist was reinforcing him. But Andrew didn’t need reinforcing this isn’t Ian McCullough here. He just needed to be turned up.
The band: the band is two guitarists and a Doktor Avalance operator. Doktor Avalanche is the drum machine. Now, the Sisters of Mercy have had a drum machine since the beginning, that has been part of their “thing.” Except one tour. Did I prefer that tour where they had a live drummer? I definitely did. Do I wish they had a live drummer? Yes I do. Did I expect it? No.
I will also say that one of the best goth live drummers, my friend Todd, lives in Baltimore and it would be awesome if Todd joined the Sisters of Mercy but he is on the road with a different elder statesman goth band right now.
I also wish they had a bassist.
I do think at one point the guitarist had a 12-string Jazzmaster, though. That is bonkers.
The fog. There was a lot of fog, sure, but there was far, far less fog than previous shows. There was so much fog at every other Sisters show I’ve been to that I could not confidently tell you the lineup. There was less fog this time. Though, I think, not for a lack of trying. I actually think this is a COVID thing, and now we have good ventilation. Which is a good thing. For health. But not a good thing for having a Sisters of Mercy show with just absolutely absurd amounts of fog. I wish there was more fog.
The Sisters are glorious, profound, hilarious, absurdist and utterly serious all at the same time. They raise questions in me about emotion, art, sincerity, depth, camp, longevity, dedication and more. I’ve been whining to myself for years that it’s absurd that the Sisters haven’t been to America lately when they’re doing all these shows on other continents. And now they have done exactly that. And I am happy for it. Thank you, Sisters, for coming to America.
All in all, a good night out. No complaints. Plus I got to miss the Trump CNN town hall discourse!
“I think she’s still in Baltimore.” — Andrew Eldritch.
I would put a playlist of the show here but half the songs aren’t on Spotify, so no luck. Here’s a link to one song, though, so you can go from there if you care.
Overly loud backing vocals and buried lead vocals? No way that's an artistic choice.