The Sisters of No-Mercy for Asthmatics
Sisters of Mercy and Hypernova at "The Music Box at The Fonda"*
The short version: Mixed. I'm conflicted.
The long version:
Hypernova
I about four metres from the front nearly directly in front of the left hand speaker stack. This Iranian five piece** are the money. The money. If you saw Luger Boa support Shihad this year, this is the kind of money I'm talking about. Every rock band should have a warm up act this good. The sound was unremarkable. That's good. If I remark about the sound, it's never good. Which, after a lengthy break, brings me to...
The Sisters of Mercy
I was slightly off centre, two or three metres from the front and in front of the arcs of the speaker stacks. The first song was 'Crash and Burn', then 'Ribbons' (with strobe lights to weed out the epileptics) then either something I didn't recognise, or the first half of 'Detonation Boulevard'. Now, I love 'Detonation Boulevard', and I don't think too many people would doubt my ability to pick Sisters songs, so the fact that I'm in doubt speaks volumes about the sound quality. The mix was crap. Maybe Eldritch likes his voice turned way the fuck down, lower than the guitarists' vocals, or maybe the Fonda sucks when you're outside of the speaker arcs, or maybe the sound engineer was dead or something. Whatever the cause, it was a problem. Now, I'm not a sound-nazi (Hi jwm!), volume covers many sins: it wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the sound had been loud enough. However, I could hear the drunk girls beside me talking during the first three songs, so clearly the sound wasn't loud enough.
That brings me to the second negative (don't worry, I do have positive things to say later!), the fact that these girls were talking through the first few songs. Did I mention that I was close to the front? Yeah, I thought so. I now appreciate Ronan Harris's (VNV Nation) exhortation that people turn off their cameras and actually appreciate the show they're at. For the first part of the show, I'm pretty sure there was always at least one iPhone or digital camera in my field of vision of all times. Also, I can quite confidently say that I was the second most energetic person at this concert. Now, that's not entirely unusual. What's unusual is that there were so few people dancing and/or jumping that I could count them and rank them. The crowd really only got into the Slight Case of Overbombing anthems. So, those of you who have attended Sisters concerts elsewhere, I'm keen to know: who's lame here: LA or Sisters fans?
Right. So the fans were lame and the sound was badly mixed, but Hypernova were awesome.
Now the positives...
Visually, the concert was cool. Unless you're asthmatic, in which case I suspect the ludicrous amount of smoke which Eldritch likes to surround himself in would be problematic. Fortunately, I'm not asthmatic, so combined with the lights***, it was just atmospheric and fucking cool. Coloured lights raked through the smoke, mostly from behind for that mysterious backlit effect. Through the colour and the haze, Eldritch stalked across the stage appearing a disappearing from the mist like some ancient gothic god to growl some lyrics and bust a few minimalist dance moves (I think he stole some of vizi's). He made a couple of token and unsuccessful attempts to interact with the audience in an Ozzy Osbourne kind of unintelli-British. Fortunately, it was these images which will infest my brain, and the shitty sound will be filled out by the extensive catalogue of Sisters tracks already resident in memory.
It was pretty cool just to be at a Sisters concert, even if I could hear myself singing along to all but the loudest songs. The setlist was pretty extensive:
Crash and Burn, Ribbons, something (probably Train), Detonation Boulevard, then the order gets fuzzy.
Alice, Teachers/On the Wire, Giving Ground, Dominion/Mother Russia, Anaconda, Marian (the only track from First and Last and Always), Floorshow, Flood II (and I think Flood I), This Corrosion, Vision Thing. There was at least one other Floodland-esque song which I recognised, but wasn't familiar enough with to identify*****.
First Encore: one of those songs, plus Lucretia My Reflection (cut short)
Second Encore****: Something Fast, instrumental rocking, Temple of Love (cut short again - they ended at the first "falling down...".)
In all, the Sisters played for around an hour and three-quarters, a pretty decent length. The anthems towards the end were louder, and I moved a little closer and wasn't bothered by the camera twats towards the end.
So I'm glad I went to see one of my favourite bands play. I would go again, for comparative purposes and with lower expectations of sound quality (but come on, I own live albums by the Sisters, so obviously sound quality isn't high on my agenda, but I do have a baseline), but I probably wouldn't cross town to see them, and I wouldn't drag a casual fan along. At the end of the day, it was worth the $54, especially because Hypernova were so good.
* Seriously, LA, what the fuck. It's one room, just give it one name. This goes triple for you Engineering Cinematique @ The Engine Theatre @ studio 1636, or whatever it was. Just cut that shit out, it's dumb.
** Although one guitarist got demoted to tambourine then left entirely, and they were briefly a three piece for some reason.
*** They even had the lights to match the Temple of Love single cover during 'Temple of Love'.
**** Yes, there were two encores, but don't get excited, they were only two song encores, that adds up to one encore with a toilet break.
***** I like Floodland now, but that was the last album I bought, and at the time ('99, '00?) I was only buying it for completeness. Hell, I think I bought two live albums and Temple of Rarities before I bought Floodland
The short version: Mixed. I'm conflicted.
The long version:
Hypernova
I about four metres from the front nearly directly in front of the left hand speaker stack. This Iranian five piece** are the money. The money. If you saw Luger Boa support Shihad this year, this is the kind of money I'm talking about. Every rock band should have a warm up act this good. The sound was unremarkable. That's good. If I remark about the sound, it's never good. Which, after a lengthy break, brings me to...
The Sisters of Mercy
I was slightly off centre, two or three metres from the front and in front of the arcs of the speaker stacks. The first song was 'Crash and Burn', then 'Ribbons' (with strobe lights to weed out the epileptics) then either something I didn't recognise, or the first half of 'Detonation Boulevard'. Now, I love 'Detonation Boulevard', and I don't think too many people would doubt my ability to pick Sisters songs, so the fact that I'm in doubt speaks volumes about the sound quality. The mix was crap. Maybe Eldritch likes his voice turned way the fuck down, lower than the guitarists' vocals, or maybe the Fonda sucks when you're outside of the speaker arcs, or maybe the sound engineer was dead or something. Whatever the cause, it was a problem. Now, I'm not a sound-nazi (Hi jwm!), volume covers many sins: it wouldn't have been so much of a problem if the sound had been loud enough. However, I could hear the drunk girls beside me talking during the first three songs, so clearly the sound wasn't loud enough.
That brings me to the second negative (don't worry, I do have positive things to say later!), the fact that these girls were talking through the first few songs. Did I mention that I was close to the front? Yeah, I thought so. I now appreciate Ronan Harris's (VNV Nation) exhortation that people turn off their cameras and actually appreciate the show they're at. For the first part of the show, I'm pretty sure there was always at least one iPhone or digital camera in my field of vision of all times. Also, I can quite confidently say that I was the second most energetic person at this concert. Now, that's not entirely unusual. What's unusual is that there were so few people dancing and/or jumping that I could count them and rank them. The crowd really only got into the Slight Case of Overbombing anthems. So, those of you who have attended Sisters concerts elsewhere, I'm keen to know: who's lame here: LA or Sisters fans?
Right. So the fans were lame and the sound was badly mixed, but Hypernova were awesome.
Now the positives...
Visually, the concert was cool. Unless you're asthmatic, in which case I suspect the ludicrous amount of smoke which Eldritch likes to surround himself in would be problematic. Fortunately, I'm not asthmatic, so combined with the lights***, it was just atmospheric and fucking cool. Coloured lights raked through the smoke, mostly from behind for that mysterious backlit effect. Through the colour and the haze, Eldritch stalked across the stage appearing a disappearing from the mist like some ancient gothic god to growl some lyrics and bust a few minimalist dance moves (I think he stole some of vizi's). He made a couple of token and unsuccessful attempts to interact with the audience in an Ozzy Osbourne kind of unintelli-British. Fortunately, it was these images which will infest my brain, and the shitty sound will be filled out by the extensive catalogue of Sisters tracks already resident in memory.
It was pretty cool just to be at a Sisters concert, even if I could hear myself singing along to all but the loudest songs. The setlist was pretty extensive:
Crash and Burn, Ribbons, something (probably Train), Detonation Boulevard, then the order gets fuzzy.
Alice, Teachers/On the Wire, Giving Ground, Dominion/Mother Russia, Anaconda, Marian (the only track from First and Last and Always), Floorshow, Flood II (and I think Flood I), This Corrosion, Vision Thing. There was at least one other Floodland-esque song which I recognised, but wasn't familiar enough with to identify*****.
First Encore: one of those songs, plus Lucretia My Reflection (cut short)
Second Encore****: Something Fast, instrumental rocking, Temple of Love (cut short again - they ended at the first "falling down...".)
In all, the Sisters played for around an hour and three-quarters, a pretty decent length. The anthems towards the end were louder, and I moved a little closer and wasn't bothered by the camera twats towards the end.
So I'm glad I went to see one of my favourite bands play. I would go again, for comparative purposes and with lower expectations of sound quality (but come on, I own live albums by the Sisters, so obviously sound quality isn't high on my agenda, but I do have a baseline), but I probably wouldn't cross town to see them, and I wouldn't drag a casual fan along. At the end of the day, it was worth the $54, especially because Hypernova were so good.
* Seriously, LA, what the fuck. It's one room, just give it one name. This goes triple for you Engineering Cinematique @ The Engine Theatre @ studio 1636, or whatever it was. Just cut that shit out, it's dumb.
** Although one guitarist got demoted to tambourine then left entirely, and they were briefly a three piece for some reason.
*** They even had the lights to match the Temple of Love single cover during 'Temple of Love'.
**** Yes, there were two encores, but don't get excited, they were only two song encores, that adds up to one encore with a toilet break.
***** I like Floodland now, but that was the last album I bought, and at the time ('99, '00?) I was only buying it for completeness. Hell, I think I bought two live albums and Temple of Rarities before I bought Floodland