Barcelona, Spain, Razzmatazz 2
Heat, sweat and smoke.
Those three words really sum up what you'd feel tonight. A packed Razzmatazz
2 was the place where The Cult delivered many of their greatest hits to a
crowd consisting of a thousand devoted fans. A last minute change due to the
low sales of tickets made Razzmatazz 2 be the club to hold the gig, instead
of the initially scheduled and larger Razzmatazz 1.
It was my second Cult show, the first being last year's. I attended it
joined by my jobmate and friend Miquel, who is a longtime Queen fan and,
thus, somebody gifted with good musical taste. He'd been into The Cult
earlier, when he bought 'Pure Cult' back in 1993. So, he wasn't a newbie to
the band at all.
We both enjoyed the show a lot. Miquel is also a guitarist, so he focused on
the technical sides of the performance. Billy was incredible, as ever.
Nonetheless, there was much treble and distortion throughout the show and
that made the sound suffer from some troubles continuosly. Ian wasn't as
talkative as some other nights but he was very thankful all along the show.
Chris and Mike did their thing alright but, unfortunately, the guitar of the
latter couldn't be heard as one would have desired. John, once again, is
gaining his reputation as the best Cult drummer ever. That means beating
such excellent drummers as Matt Sorum and Michael Lee.
I hope this line-up keeps on touring and, obviously, releasing some fresh
material as they're supposed to do on 25th September. They have showed they
are now a band that plays tight together and can revisit such oldies as
'Horse nation' or 'Spiritwalker' without falling into self-parody. In fact,
80% of the show consisted of old tracks as those aforementioned plus
'Electric ocean', 'Nirvana' and the classics 'Wild flower', Love removal
machine', 'Rain' and 'She sells sanctuary', which ended the encore and the
whole gig. Also, Ian and Billy played an acoustic 'Star' and were joined by
Mike to perform 'Revolution' the same way. Fortunately, they have unearthed
the electric version of 'Edie (ciao baby)' which they came back with to the
stage before ending the show with 'She sells sanctuary'. If I was to made
any suggestion to the band, regarding setlist, I think they should drop
'Wonderland' off and play 'Earth mofo', instead. Also, it should be good to
listen to something from the self-titled album, be it 'Gone' or 'Coming
down.' I enjoyed the show but I cannot understand why they've left 'Lil'
devil' behind. It's always been a live favourite.
Àlex Díez (Spain)
Setlist
Horse Nation
Nirvana
Spiritwalker
Electric Ocean
Fire Woman
In The Clouds
The Witch
Wonderland
Star
Revolution
Rain
I Assassin
The Phoenix
Wild Flower
Love Removal Machine
Encore
Edie (Ciao Baby)
She Sells Sanctuary