MVM’s Damian gets his goth on by the seaside.
fast becoming the premier Goth festival in Europe. The Whitby Goth weekend takes place inside the wonderful setting of the Victorian Whitby Pavilion perched atop West Cliff overlooking the North Sea.
The Lene Lovich band is a fine start to Friday. The band comprises Subterraneans front man Jude Rawlins on guitar, bassist Valkyrie, keyboard player Kirsten Morrison, Morgan king on drums and Lovich on vocals.
“You Can’t Kill Me” a reggae style number is offered up before “Bird Song” a number that showcases Lene`s vocal range with some high pitched almost oral screaming, Lene has in her time recorded screams for horror films. “Rocky Road” is played before we get the wonderful “Lucky Number” a hit for this Gothic Punk Chanteuse in 1979.
Say When” and “Wicked Witch” are aired before “Light” closes the set and the band leave the stage to a fairly rapturous reception.
From that to art rock from Australia with The Red Paintings. Mainstay Trash McSweeney on guitar, sequencing and samples, is joined by a revolving line-up across the globe.
The band is known for their unique, confronting and intense themed performances incorporating elements of theatre and art, often dubbed “orchestral sci-fi art rock”.
A screen plays a tape showing a person in a Vendetta mask confirming that the band would be released for the show but that a pledge campaign was available to support the bands freedom to complete the rest of the tour.
It makes for a really interesting and enjoyable show with tracks predominantly from the 2014 release “The Revolution is Never Coming” with the title track plus “You’re Not One of Them”, “Wasps” “The Fall of Rome” and the wonderful “It Is As It Was”.Trash dedicates a superb cover version of “Five Years” to the sadly departed David Bowie.
Therapy? Close out tonight’s show with a headlining master class.
This alternative metal band formed in Northern Ireland in 1989 and now consist of Andy Cairns, vocals and guitar, Michael McKeegan on bass and Neil Cooper on the sticks.
The band appear and steam straight into the Joy Division classic “Isolation” before dedicating “Die Laughing” to recently departed Victoria Wood and Prince.
The set flies by with “Opel Mantra”, “Lonely, Cryin`, Only”, “A Moment of Clarity” and the superb “Turn” which is dedicated to Sophie Lancaster.
“Skyward”, “Deathstimate” and “Stories” quickly follow before Andy introduces the new single “Tides” from their fourteenth album “Disquiet”.
The James Joyce inspired “Sister” is shared before we get “Nausea” and “Innocent X”
The wonderful single “Teethgrinder” thunders out and it’s hard to believe that this was released in 1992.
The throwaway “Potato Junkie” is aired before two cracking numbers conclude this non stop in your face set with “Knives” and “Nowhere.” The guys exit stage right before returning with the Husker Du cover “Diane”. “Still Hurts” and “Insecurity” follow before the boys sadly leave us with the immense “Screamager”.
The bands Facebook site had said they were planning a pretty good show and they certainly delivered it in spades.
Who needs Therapy when you get Therapy? Instead.
Saturday 23/04/2016
We’ve got a Fuzzbox and we’re gonna use it or Fuzzbox were formed in Birmingham in 1985 and shined brightly for 5 years before disbanding. The band has reformed a couple of times before but now comprise of two original members Vix Perks (vocals) and Maggie Dunne (keyboards and vocals). The additional new members are Megan Burke (guitar), Sarit Black (bass) and Hannah Layhe (Drums).
5,4,3,2,1 Fuzzbox are go and we are straight into the wonderful “International Rescue” followed quickly by the equally superb “Rules and Regulations” before we come up for air. “Whats the Point” and “Fast Forward Futurama” are aired before a cover of Norman Greenbaum`s “Spirit in The Sky” is shared. We get a cracking version of Yoko Ono`s “Walking on Thin Ice” before the really catchy “Self!” is played.
Maggie loses her glasses and also her coil (pfnar, pfnar) before both are rescued and the girls play “She” and “XX Sex”. Vix recounts that the next song “Hollow Girl” is a kind of Goth song which she wrote when she was sixteen. The final song is the terrific “Pink Sunshine” and the girls head off with the crowd going crazy. This was a marvellous set which had it all. At times it was shambolic in a nice way but that’s what I always loved about this band. Probably their Brummie sense of humour that they don’t take themselves too seriously but can write and deliver some fantastic dancy pop classics that will have you singing along. The Fuzzbox certainly got used tonight.
Headlining Saturday night is none other than Wayne Hussey, the Godfather of Goth.
He saunters onto the stage with just a beat box, guitar, ukulele and piano keyboard to keep him company. “Sleeping Pills” kicks off the show followed by a cover of the Bob Dylan classic “All Along the Watchtower”. The set is predominantly made up of Mission songs understandably. But the lesser known numbers, such as “Island in The Stream”, “Stay With Me”, “The Crystal Ocean”, “Fabienne” and “Black Cat Bone” played either on piano, guitar or ukulele.
Andrew Eldritch is name checked when Hussey`s new single “Marian” is introduced. A song that they wrote together thirty one years ago.
The stunning All About Eve track “Martha’s Harbour” follows before “Black Mountain Mist” is shared.
“Severina” gets the audience singing along before the final two songs “For Ever More” and “Butterfly on a Wheel” close out the set. The encore consists of three songs almost blended into each other.
The iconic Mission classic “Wasteland”, Neil Young’s “ Like A Hurricane” and dépêche Mode’s “Personal Jesus”.
The event was musically faultless, the artist is a gifted performer with a remarkably rich voice but I felt the acoustic nature of the show left the atmosphere a little flat. Most of the venues on the tour have been quite intimate and I could imagine the songs would have been stunning in these settings.
