#TheCult

The Cult celebrates 30 years of Sonic Temple + Judas Priest & more

Great season of great legends!

 

The Cult – 30th Anniversary of Sonic Temple – May 9th – House of Blues – Dallas, TX

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of its “Sonic Temple” album The Cult kicked off a special tour this week by playing the album in it’s entiriety.
Some of these songs had not been performed since the album (their fourth) was originally released in 1989.

A pivotal, game-changing album that brought together the alternative and hard rock audiences — will be reissued in a 30th-anniversary edition by Beggars Banquet Records.

I always make a point to see The Cult every tour even though that attention is only deserved residually. I actually saw the original Sonic Temple tour when they opened for Metallica that year and in 1994 they played one of the best shows I’ve ever seen still to this day.  That alone still gets me through the door every year but once I’m there I quickly remember the problem. Singer Ian Astbury has to be one of the most naturally irritating & just zero self-aware frontmen in history. I really don’t know when that started but it was probably around 1996 when he put out his solo record and I saw him drunkenly stumble through a disastorus set in the parking lot of Trees that ended with him falling off the stage,

Since then The Cult stock has continued to lower, with again Astbury at the center of the problem. Openly criticizing band members on stage and the audience & talking non-stop about God-Knows-What between songs has just killed this band.

Still the chance to hear American Horse live proved to be irristible & thankfully this time Astbury was on better behavior but not enough. Also he can’t really sing these songs anymore and you can’t recognize half of them until the chorus hits. However, I wasn’t alone as the was the most packed I’ve seen the building in a long time & certainly the biggest turn out in this city for this band since Sonic Temple was first released.

Setlist:

Sonic Temple set

Sun King
New York City
Automatic Blues
Sweet Soul Sister
American Horse
Soul Asylum (performed for first time since 1989)
Edie (Ciao Baby)
Fire Woman
Lucifer
American Gothic
Rise
Spiritwalker
The Phoenix
She Sells Sanctuary

Encore: 

Saints Are Down
Rain
Love Removal Machine

Judas Priest – May 31st – The Bomb Factory – Dallas, TX

When your band is 50 years old, the easiest way to please a crowd is to just play a string of hits, decade by decade, inking the obvious checkboxes. The harder way is to roll out deeper cuts and knock it out of the park with your new songs — music that’s going to feel fresher to you than something you wrote in the early ’80s that you’ve sung thousands of times.

This was the higher path Judas Priest chose for this new leg of their Firepower tour supporting their kickass LP of the same name released last year.

Not that Priest strayed from the golden catalogue – Legendary frontman, the Metal God himself Rob Halford, in various evolutionary stages of biker gear along with bassist Ian Hill, guitarist Richie Faulkner, the lanky Scott Travis on drums and touring guitarist Andy Sneap, proving his voice can still shatter eardrums as one of the most recognizable sounds in the history of heavy metal.

Waving his mic around, draped in black, Halford stood in front of a Ptolemaic god rising from a field of flame during 2005’s thrashy Judas Rising, subbing in for Painkiller speed and energy-wise.

After more of a brief pause than an encore break  the hit-hopers got their fix as Halford rode out on a fat Harley and sang 1978’s Hell Bent for Leather.

Total singalong time for 1980’s Breaking the Law, yeah they did, the finale being Living After Midnight, Halford appropriately singing, “I’m gone!”

Setlist 

Necromancer
Heading Out to the Highway
The Sentinel
Spectre
(Take These) Chains
Judas Rising
Out in the Cold
Traitors Gate
Starbreaker
Steeler
Halls of Valhalla
Tyrant
No Surrender
Victim of Changes
All Guns Blazing

Encore:

Hell Bent for Leather
Breaking the Law
Living After Midnight

Photos –

Roy Turner
Jim Louvau

The Eagle Freaker’s Ball w/ The Cult & Marilyn Manson (Oct/2015)

KEGL 97.1 The Eagle Freaker’s Ball w/ The Cult & Marilyn Manson – Oct 30th 2015 – Verizon Theatre – Grand Prarie, TX

How fitting for a local radio show to bring Marilyn Manson to their annual Halloween themed party & on Hallow’s Eve no less.
It was actually in this building the last time I saw Alice Cooper on a co-headlining tour with Manson back in 2013.

I really don’t know what to say here because I just don’t know what’s up with him. He’s been spitting out releases every couple of years that no one pays any attention to with a different lineup & live he just seems kinda out of it. Even when he’s recycling old gags like the bible burning from a fascist podium thing he just doesn’t feel present. He seemed to do a little better last time on the Alice Cooper tour, what can light a fire under your ass like having your mentor & chief inspiration watching your performances each night? But the time before that was a total disaster. I had gone to see opener’s The Pretty Reckless fronted by human masterpiece Taylor Momsen but when Manson took the stage it was such a train wreck I couldn’t even make out what songs they were doing.

This time wasn’t quite as bad & their was the full production to distract you from it occassionally but he seems either totally drunk/stoned or he thinks that’s how he’s suppose to present it. Something of interest – when he came out  first thing he notices is a small child up front against the barricade (apparently Parents of the Year were in attendance) & questions why he’s there (as we all were). He kept playing up to the kid and including him in the show and even occasionally extending his microphone for him to sing into it – This was wholly enjoyable as otherwise it would have been just another drunk phoned in performance.
See? It’s all about perspective – For me as a veteran of the music industry this was barely above ho hum – but for that kid, this was one of the greatest nights of his life – something that he’ll never forget & will always talk about with grand revision of the utmost importance & influence – and that’s exactly what he should do as that’s really what it’s all about.

Before Manson was the Cult whose career trajectory I’m even more befuddled by. Same as Manson, back in the 1990’s I saw them play some of the most inspired sets in my life, something that keeps me coming back residually ever since.

Somehow I’ve managed to see the Cult more times in the last 5 years than I did in the previous 20, with each performance more dreadful than the last.
This show was no exception – Besides singer Ian Astbury’s complete inability to recreate the songs live anymore, it’s his stage banter that’s even more cring inducing.
An embarassing prick with zero self-awareness to say the least, seemed resentful of being here and taunted the audience instead of attempting to entertain them. His Jim Morrison impression taken too far.
His real resentment seemed to come from opening for Manson whom he openly criticized a sent a few back-handed shots his way.
A puzzling presentation that equaled a complete waste of time.

The saving grace of this misguided affair was, as it always is & should be – The Fans:

 

Summer Heats up w/The Cult (Summer/2012)

They have really faltered in the last few years and now they were here promoting that their gonna release a new LP for the first time in five years. They were in pretty good shape and sounded really decent and driven. The last few times I’ve seen them have been dreadful, but I love them so much its a little irresistible to not go when they were playing a show like this while I’m in town.
In my freshman year at college, I saw them play one of the best shows I’ve still ever seen in my life and the residual value from that show keeps me coming back.
Though some key members are back in the band and everyone looked and sounded great and probably the best I’ve seen them in 15 years – one thing that has remained and will never change is that singer Ian Astbury has the absolute worst between-song banter in the history of performing. You would think that after all this time he would have this down by now, but he consistently comes off as your drunk uncle embarrassing you with some inappropriate speech at your wedding.
The band still kicked ass though and the new songs sounded really good – however the only thing anyone will remember from this show was something very silly, but added spontaneity to the evening was Astbury bringing up Matthew McConaughey to play (unmiked) bongos on a couple of songs.

Besides the obvious this was silly for a number of reasons – they just let him pound away unmiked so not to interfere with the song, also though it was 10pm he kept his dark Aviator Shades on the whole time like a creep, and when his image was shown on the big screens sidestages, it drew the largest applause. Ok, I get it, it was a way to include him and make the evening special, its not like I hate fun.

SET LIST:

Lil’ Devil
Honey From A Knife
Horse Nation
Lucifer
Embers
Nirvana
Wildflower
The Wolf
Spiritwalker
Phoenix
Fire Woman
For the Love of the Animals

Encore:

She Sells Sanctuary
Love Removal Machine

Now as I hate to make fun of the starfuckers in the crowd and then turn into one myself, the thing that I will remember most is this:
As I’m backstage talking to some of my friends and a few of the guys in the Cult, I see this staggeringly gorgeous creature walking by me, back and forth several times. Besides her freakish good looks she just seemed like a normal festival-goer – She was even wearing a SXSW badge around her neck like everyone else. She seemed like she was looking for something and I definitely wanted to talk to her so I approached her and she asked me if I had a lighter, which I did.
As I’m pulling the lighter out I glance at her badge and it reads: ROONEY MARA
No fucking way – now I’m the one drooling (as if I wasn’t already) –
Bill Murray? sure, Matthew McConaughey? expected – but the fucking Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?? This was not in the plans and I was kinda shitting myself. This was perfect timing too because I (and perhaps the world) will never be in love with her again as much as I am right now and I wasn’t meeting her in 10 years at some Comic-Con with a folding table between us.
I had just seen the movie – I didn’t’ know shit about it other than its the book my friends who don’t read are reading this year.
Though the racy scenes in the film of her are not gratuitous, I don’t think that you are supposed to see her as such a babe for the story’s sake – but let me tell you something, every time she was on screen my heart kinda jumped a little and in person she looked flawless.
I managed to not make a dork out of myself and spoke with her briefly and another actor, Gerard Butler.
She was the one that actually gave me the explanation of why I couldn’t come backstage during the show –
They were actually shooting coverage and improvised scenes for an upcoming Terrence Malick film with the members of the Cult!
Nothing to do with the Dragon Tatoo series – another film she’s gonna be in, apparently her character goes to see the Cult in concert etc.
McConaughey was being McConaughey so I let him be – and I would normally never do this but I knew that nobody would believe me – so when this other guy asked to get a pic of Mara, McConaughey, and singer Ian Astbury, when he left I got a shot. They asked if I wanted to be in it, but I wasn’t gonna douche-out that hard:

So I left there feeling pretty good, a great show with an unexpected ending, what a freaking day already eh?

 

 

 

The Cult – July 21st – House of Blues – Dallas, TX

What a night! As I was walking back to my car that was by the House of Blues anyway totally adremanlzed from seeing my heroes in Van Halen, a guy was standing on the sidewalk handing out free tickets to see The Cult who were already on inside House of Blues! –
I will always love the Cult, and they are still responsible for putting on of the best shows I’ve ever seen in 1995 – however if you have followed this blog or know me personally, you know that the have sadly sorely declined over the years. I will go as far as to say that I saw them at this very venue two years prior and it was one of the most pathetic and embarassing performances I have ever seen. How had they sunk that low?

Well thankfully they seem to be on a bit of an upswing, or as much of one as they are capable of at this point as I caught them in Austin earlier this year and the show was leaps and bounds better than the ghaslty show from 2010 but than again that’s not saying much.
The show in Austin was during SXSW and was special as Matthew Mcconaughey joined them for a  few songs and I met actress Roony Mara backstage after the gig.
I’m happy to report that this gig tonight, in support of their excellent new album Choice of Weapon – their first in five years – both are in the same spirit of the upswing that I witnessed in Austin earlier this year – as they were kicking ass and the crowd on fire when I walked into this show – and keep in mind, I had just seen Van Halen.

 

I had missed about the first half of the regualr set but stil got the see the remaing 7 songs and a 3 song encore. I looked over and I see an old friend Chris Young who I hadn’t seen in a long time and he introduced me to Drue, a really cool DJ friend of his.After the show I was on the smoker’s porch contemplating such a great evening – but I did hear/see some strange things tonight –  On the walk over here one guy was seriously confused/dissapointed by the omission of Dreams….. a Sammy Hagar song from the Van Halen show.
Now at the Cult here on the smoker’s porch post-show a (very attractive) girl told me she boycotted the VH show cause of the choice of opening band Kool & The Gang.I told her that her choice/reasons for not going based on that were even stranger.
She & her bf were holding the Cult’s setlist (stage copy) desperately trying to figure out what it was.
Since the song Nirvana was on there they resolved it must be a random list of band names-as in they didnt recognize anything else…at a show they had paid to see. When I told them it was the setlist, it literally blew their minds. Marijuana can be a very powerful drug.

 

– Happy New Year w/ Morris Day & The Time + The Cult do all of Electric & more –

The Cult – Dec 18th – Billy Bob’s Texas – Fort Worth, TX

I wasn’t sure I was going to this at first – The last not one or two but more like 4 or 5 times I’ve seen the Cult its been dreadful. What keeps me coming back other than just a pure love of the band is chasing the impossible – They pulled off a perfect show in 1995 that for someone like me that’s seen close to 2k shows, stands as one of the best ever.
Also Billy Bob’s is of course a really silly Country Bar whos patrons (and baffling seating arrangements) can be a beating.
However, the place is literally 5 mins from me and they were gonna do their 1987 album Electric in its entirety (their best & my fave).

I thought they might warm up to it before diving in but instead they opened their two-hour set by playing it first. It’s the band’s breakthrough album and the one that signified a musical shift from straight-up Goth rock to a compelling blues-metal hybrid. But every song on the album isn’t a winner. While Wildflower and Love Removal Machine are fist-raising anthems and came off great live, other tracks are forgettable and didn’t work so well live, and technically they skipped the last three songs on the LP – They didn’t play Outlaw, Memphis Hip Shake or their cover of Born to Be Wild but the tag line Playing the first 8 songs from Electric doesn’t quite have the right ring to it.
It didn’t help that singer Ian Astbury had trouble properly delivering the vocals. Astbury is a powerhouse singer but sounded flat for most of set as he has on most of the recent tours. Still, this was the best show I’ve seen them do in 15 years. Their was just a new found energy that gave songs like Lil’ Devil and Bad Fun the swagger they really needed, that’s been missing the last few tours. Even Billy Bob’s got rid of their idiotic seating arrangement and made the show General Admission for which I was very grateful for.

Mid-way through the set, Astbury, started to sound better after the band took a brief break at the conclusion of Electric and returned to play the soaring Rain. But he couldn’t hit the right notes on Sweet Soul Sister and sounded best when the song only required that he stay in the lower registers. As a result, tunes like the moody, Nick Cave-like Embers were really quite powerful. But that was the exception rather than the norm. The band sounded sharp and the hard-drinking capacity crowd came ready to rock. The band gave audience members plenty of good reason to let loose. A good fun night and was glad I made the decision to come.

Setlist

Wild Flower Peace Dog
Lil’ Devil
Aphrodisiac Jacket
Electric Ocean
Bad Fun
King Contrary Man
Love Removal Machine
Embers
Honey From a Knife
Rain
Lucifer
Sweet Soul Sister
Rise
The Phoenix
She Sells Sanctuary

Encore:

Horse Nation
Spiritwalker
Sun King

I think it would have been truly inspired if they even did the Electric B-Sides:

Conquistador
Zap City
Love Trooper
Groove Co.

But that’s just me thinking big as always.

Summer Heat Up w/ Billy Idol, The Cult & More (Summer 2010)

Billy Idol – August 24th – 2010 The Palladium Ballroom – Dallas, TX

Ok so this was very last minute as I hadn’t planned on going to this show nor do I prioritize Billy Idol (at least not since I was 11). Singer-dude, has to throw a bone to his wife every once in awhile and needed my assistance to do so, so last minute I scored 3 tickets and met them up at the show. Idol’s people were cool enough and gave me the full backstage ride with my tickets. I meet up with married-rawker-couple and Idol was about 3 songs in. I had no idea he still kicked this much ass. Now, I wouldn’t even have considered going if he hadn’t reunited with his long-time guitarist, Steve Stevens, who still rules.

 


I was so surprised at how fun this was, and how legit it seemed. Billy Idol holds an important place in annals of my story-telling as he should have been my first concert. When his biggest LP. Rebel Yell was having its run, I was barely 10, though mature for my age, and I literally worshiped Billy Idol. You should have seen my amalgamation of trying to emulate my heroes, it was like MTV had thrown up on me. I had the Union Jack t-shirt of Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, the blonde spikes of Billy Idol, the leather spikes of Judas Priest, and for whatever reason…Parachute Pants (look ’em up kids) however in my defense in the Photograph video Elliot does appear to be wearing something similar, so maybe that was my inspiration. Of course I was completely unaware of how silly I looked, but I didn’t care, I thought I was cool haha. So it was this kid that was pumping his fist, finally in the midnight howl.
Something kinda funny happened, while we were standing there, this couple and a third girl were standing in front of us, when literally out of nowhere, I guess the solo gal felt lonely/jealous, she grabs me violently and leads me off to go dance with her. Not that I had much choice, but ok I thought, but when we were dancing it was soon apparent that she was so drunk she could barely stand, and completely unaware of the crowd around us, which caused her to do very unpredictable things. Not to mention she looked like that situation at the strip club where from afar the dancer looks ok, but as you approach you are like “Oh fuck!”. I got the hell out of there after half a song.
After the show I went backstage, and met Billy, but very briefly as they were on their way out. Everyone seemed to be going to this bar in Deep Ellum called Reno’s so we decided to head there.(later that evening) Harptallica – The Nightmare – Dallas, TXOk so we wind up at this metal bar called Reno’s, and we are not there very long before I’m hearing that a few streets over their is something called Harptallica about to perform. It was exactly what your thinking, and it was freaking awesome.


   I didn’t even know this existed and  I was prepared to not take such a thing very seriously at all. Its sensibilities attracted an anything but metal crowd, but rather that hipster, ironic thing. You know the guy that wears Iron Maiden t-shirts, ironically?. Few things get under my skin as much as this, and by the looks of the performers, they looked like vegans from Portland who birthed the idea of this from a late night bong rip, but when they started to play, all bets were off. This was real, and these girls could play, and they played like a couple of freaking angels. I was mesmerized, by the sound, their prowess and how complicated the arrangements were, that it sounded like 20 people on stage, and it was just these two young girls. I hit the merch booth afterwords with a vengeance, buying one of everything, and also for Ryan, my bff and Metallica fanatic, who I was texting throughout the show saying “You are missing out!”.
Afterwords I walked back to Reno’s where my car was and I hear someone calling my name and its Paris (see Rock N America).
Wearing the tightest jeans I’ve ever seen and a freaking tube top, her sexuality was just relentless (and she’s only 19).
But I’m not one of those dudes that hits on her constantly (their were a couple of those dudes standing around, clearly disappointed by my arrival) so she was genuinely happy to see me as I was of her and we had a nice catchup and I told her about the upcoming Ween tour.
The Cult  – House of Blues – Dallas, TX – September 27thThe show starts, and its clear right off the bat, that singer Ian Astbury has permanently lost the plot. Whatever has happened to this guy is still happening and looks like it will continue as he was even more embarrassing than the last time I saw them.
Let me walk you through a brief history:
Now the Cult have never been one of MY bands, but I do like them, and mainly cause I was so inspired by a performance I saw of theirs my Senior year of High School, that to this day is still in my Top 5 shows I’ve ever seen. So, like a sap, I still cling to that memory and go see the Cult every year. But how did it get so bad and to this point?
Shortly after that legendary performance, the band took a break and Astbury did a solo record and tour and that’s probably where the problems began. I remember seeing that tour and Astbury was drunk and embarrassing and falling all over the place.
He really is like a drunker, Liam Gallagher. A few years after that, I saw them reclaim it a bit, but then I didn’t see them for a really long time until I moved to NYC and about 3 years ago so them play at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
I was impressed that they could still play a place that large and prestigious, had free tickets and have always wanted to see this building.
The night was memorable for several things:
1) It was one of the first dates with this craazzy Chinese girl I dated very briefly, who only weighed 90 lbs, covered in tattoos, and showed up in a skin tight catsuit, and was a scary, drunken disaster the whole night.
2) After the show we went backstage, and while back there, no matter how much Chinese girl tried to embarrass us, I met one of the most interesting, funny, stylish, stupid-gorgeous and just ridiculously awesome individuals I can ever recall. She totally saved me from the embarrassment of Chinese Girls’ antics, and was just so much fun to talk to and be around. She looked like a movie star, and since then we have become friends, and she has gone on to become the famous porn star, Ryan Keely.
3) This was one of the worst shows I have ever seen.To come full circle in this post, the drummer for the band for the last few years (and also that NYC show) is John Tempesta, who I mentioned earlier in the Exodus portion of this post. But that was about the only cool thing about his show. Astbury, couldn’t hit the notes, was behind the beat, and openly criticized his band, which is so unprofessional and makes everyone uncomfortable. His between-song-spiels were cringe inducing.

 They also did that thing where they started the show playing way too many songs in a row off of a new, mediocre album. I’m all for relevancy, and wasn’t here to just hear the hits, but when a band has been in pieces for this long, its arrogant to walk out and play 8 songs in a row from a record that most in the audience don’t own. Astbury just seems clueless and a total prick.

Photos –Roy Turner
Mike Insuaste
Rich Lopez
Tom MurphyDirt Junior