The Kids Are Alright

I admit, I spent the five minutes between arriving at the venue and the support band kicking off making jokes about their name. Having spent the last few couple of years in self-imposed exile under a rock, I hadn’t heard of The Black Ryder until this tour was announced. To me, the name conjured up entertaining memories of Bill & Ted’s Wyld Stallyns, shortly followed by a horrified suspicion that there may be spandex involved. Fortunately, I was wrong on all counts. Opening to a near-deserted room, their first few tracks were discordantly confused, but by the third track they had not only settled in, but had also managed to attract the attention of what could now be called a crowd away from The Palace’s (criminally overpriced) bar(s).

Unashamedly wearing their influences on their sleeves, they nonetheless pulled off an absorbing live set, complete with swirling guitar lines soaked in reverb, girls in 60s dresses wielding maracas and harmonicas, and the sort of drowsily vague vocals that offer snatches of almost discernable lyrics, that may be profound once you’d deciphered them, if only you hadn’t taken all that Valium beforehand. The guitar and vocal duo of Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper work well, either together, or when alternating lead singer duties. Need the obligatory comparisons? Imagine The Velvet Underground and The Cowboy Junkies getting together with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and playing Mazzy Star’s Mary of Silence, complete with Hope Sandoval on incoherently haunting vocals. This is what happens when bands grow up not only on 70s psychedelia but also the dissociative ennui of 90s shoegaze and alt-rock. It may not be groundbreaking, but it’s a fusion of eras done well, for the most part. If your music tastes run toward the 4AD and Beggar’s Banquet back catalogues, you would do well to check them out.

I then spent the 85 minutes (!?) between Black Ryder and The Cult bitching about the aforementioned excessive drink prices at The Palace. $20 is enough to keep an impoverished child in footwear for a year (according to my Gifts For Life catalogue), but it’s difficult to feel charitable when it’s what you get charged for two ‘Mexican’ beers and the headline act is running overtime by half an hour on a Sunday evening. In overpriced booze land, that’s an eternity, and the crowd was getting restless.

Morrison Hostel

Launching into Love’s first track, Nirvana, the current line-up of The Cult rapidly allayed the concern that, unlike many other 80s acts currently being resurrected for one-off tours, this is more than another cycle in their fairly tumultuous lifespan. Billy Duffy, complete with signature Gretsch White Falcon, has aged well. In fact, he looks about the same as he did circa 1995. More importantly, he can still play, and oh, can he ever still belt it out when he’s not having foldback issues, something that reportedly plagued the previous evening’s gig at The Palais. Ian Astbury sauntered onstage looking as Jimbo-esque as possible, circa fat-guy-in-a-bathtub era, complete with added beardage. Hidden behind sunglasses for the entirety of the Love album, his lack of mobility was more due to having a hip reconstruction not long ago.

Old rockers don’t die now, they just get rebuilt; in this case certainly bigger than before and not quite as fast, yet vocally stronger – Astbury’s notes were sometimes off during the Love set, but he nailed each song during the second one. Plowing through the original (American) tracklist of Love, there was a slight air of hollowness to the performance, with little interaction between Astbury and the crowd, but by the time they got to Rain all had been forgiven; by the time they got to (She Sells) Sanctuary the crowd was in a plaid-clad bouncing frenzy, Duffy’s tight guitar lines keeping Astbury’s sometimes rambling vocals in check. A brief intermission and they’re back, with a far rockier ‘best of’ set and with an obvious enthusiasm not found previously. It’s clear that Astbury has returned to earth from wherever he had been thus far with a vengeance. Prowling the stage, tambourine in hand, we’re treated to gutsy renditions of Fire Woman, Sweet Soul Sister, Sweet Salvation, Wildflower, and Love Removal Machine among others. Duffy’s capabilities have not dulled with age. Note perfect throughout, he produces an astonishingly high calibre live sound. Backed up on rhythm guitar by Mike Dimkich, along with bass player Chris Wyse, and drummer John Tempesta, the gig overall echoes the band’s fitful history. Despite some brief lulls, the material remains rock solid, as it were, and is delivered accordingly.

They finish up with Edie (Ciao, Baby), Astbury and Duffy sharing a hug before exiting the stage. Having declared (some would argue ironically) at the Palais gig that encores “are pretentious”, it was thus a double treat when they came back with a transcendent version of Spiritwalker. And there was much rejoicing.

So, was it worth the resurrection? Hell yes. The Astbury/Duffy combination is still worth seeing in action even if it’s now a little older and a lot less flamboyant. Just remember Astbury is now not only post-singing for The Doors, but is also post-surgery, and adjust your expectation of interaction and stage performance accordingly. Duffy though? For the price of a ticket, and an (overpriced) beer or two, just for him.

Written by Aowyne Davies-White