Sisters of Mercy were a bucket list band, not that I was a huge fan, but I liked them and they like me back to some days with Gothy music helped get me through (even if I wasn't Gothy (at least on the outside)). They were active but never did a lot of dates, especially Stateside, so seeing them on their own would be its own accomplishment. Also the fact that they were already old (though maybe immortal for all their Gothness), and only getting older, so time could have been running out. Chiefly, Corey had an extra ticket (as he often does, and I don’t even mind not being who he intended to take when he get to the tickets). He came up, we met at my place in Fullerton, then we drove out to L.A. We even got there on time, since Corey hasn’t gone to enough concerts to want to narrow his time to just what he wants to see, so we saw opener A Crowd of Ravens. It was just a dude and a chick, playing guitar and bass with everything else canned, and we didn’t know about them before and hadn’t heard anything about them since. Most notably they carried the Goth theme that had descended heavily on the place, appropriate to the Sisters, and more than a little callback to Club Metro which is where I was introduced, almost intimately, to the Sisters and Goth culture. Corey fit right in, but the whole place also could have been a Metro reunion (or at least everyone looked they could be, and the age range -- for Sisters fandom and Metro attendance -- would have been about right. I can’t call them out on being old because I'm there too. But it’s a shame they can’t age better if they’re going to live forever). Everyone, including the band, were covered in so many layers (of black) and make-up that it was hard to discern an age, but that’s also probably the point. I might have made an attempt to dress in black, but like then as now, I didn’t care so much (though among all the outcasts, I could be the outcast). I can only see the culture from the outside, but even for all the trappings of Goth and how they helped engender it, the Sisters always could have been a rock band as much as a Goth band, maybe more; rock for the music, Goth for the image (if that was even more just for wearing dark colors). But Goth is immortal, and Eldritch keeps living on, even sparing himself in concert by only singing and leaving the music to the band, even relieving them of having a drummer by employing a drum machine instead. Synthesizers also made up for the range of orchestral flourishes in most of their tunes, and if Eldritch was the main show in the first place, his presence and anything he did was enough. He prowled the stage in frontman fashion, putting on some kind of show, and performing even if the backing track wasn’t completely live. The songs were changed up slightly, a necessary refreshening for music decades old (though you’d think dust would add some authenticity), or at least had some artistic care to reshape them over the time in place of a new album since 1990. “More,” what I would have picked as their biggest hit (or at least the song that Metro played the most), was a touch more subtle, turning down its rock edge, maybe to concede for placing it more firmly as a moody Goth anthem. The encore could have dragged with “This Corruption,” but it’s more a surprise when that song is almost 10 minutes long since it moves so well, that a drawn-out performance that threatened to last forever would have been appropriate. Then it was over so all the Goths could fade back into the night (then their well-lit day-jobs and kids (and grandkids)). We went back to the parking lot at the 24 Hour Fitness then drove back to Orange County and a late-night dinner at Denny’s, yet another concession to the habits from the old days of Metro.
"Don't Drive on Ice"
"Crash and Burn"
"Ribbons"
"Alice"
"I Will Call You"
"Arms"
"But Genevieve"
"Dominion / Mother Russia"
"Summer"
"Show Me"
"Marian"
"More"
"Instrumental 86"
"Doctor Jeep / Detonation Boulevard"
"Eyes of Caligula"
"Something Fast"
"Here"
"On the Beach"
"When I'm on Fire"
"Temple of Love" (with Terri Nunn)
"Lucretia My Reflection"
"This Corrosion"
"The Tempest"
"The Blackest Mantra"
"Old Ghosts"
"The Earthen Call"
"When It Comes"
"The Reaping Wheel"
"Requiem for the Sun"
"Sacrosanct"
"Sympathy for the Devil" (The Rolling Stones cover)
"Parable"
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