Well that was fun. First things first, support was from local band New Talk
https://newtalk.bandcamp.com - I mostly liked them, to me they came over a bit like a hard rock Siouxie and the Banshees with some interesting angular song structures, and they put a lot of energy in to it. The guitarist even wore a cowboy hat, though I think that was more in the way of his usual attire than any kind of tribute; this is the wild west of Australia, after all.
Before getting in to the main course, Indulge me a brief personal digression, to give some background of where I'm coming from. My first encounter with the Sisters was some time in mid '86. I was sixteen, at school in northern England, and so, so ready for an alternative to the shiny plastic falsetto squeaking in the charts, when someone put on a VHS of Wake. Well helllllo clouds of smoke, black cowboy hats, reverb and, above all, that reptilian baritone prowl. I was primed, and it made a big impact - I know Von dismisses it as "just one of our weeks of silly costumes" but for me, that is always going to be "the" Sisters.
Despite all the years that have passed, it's only worked out for me to see the band once before, and that was - gulp - 25 years ago, at the Forum in London
https://sisterswiki.org/Thu,_12-Feb-1998, back when Von still had a little bit of hair (even if it was in his "Elliot Carver" phase). It's all a bit of a blur at this point and this is way before ubiquitous smartphone cameras, but I remember phenomenal quantities of dry ice, a setlist of classics and some bangin new songs. Oh, heady days, when a new album seemed like a real possibility.
So I'm gonna confess that along with the anticipation for this gig, there was a little trepidation. What if I can't get on with the rawk Sisters? Eldrich was never exactly the boy with the golden tonsils, but in 98 he could still sing - what if the voice is just too far gone? What if I'm just a middle aged old dinosaur out of place and time?
Well it turns out I had nothing to worry about. At volume, Von's voice didn't matter that much - I mean, it would have been pretty much impossible to make out any lyrics that you didn't already know, but it didn't matter in the shape of the music. The best way for me to enjoy the evening was to basically treat it as a totally different band who happened to do several sisters covers - my biggest highlights were all new songs; Don't Drive On Ice, Eyes Of Caligula, Here - most of all, On The Beach which is a stormer. Oh and Lucretia - whatever throat lubrication Von took in the break before the encore clearly worked, and his voice seemed the strongest here of the whole night. The overall sound was great - crisp and clear. My other half, who hadn't heard of the Sisters before she met me so came at it with no preconceptions, enjoyed the whole shebang.
I didn't totally connect with the reinterpretations of some of the old songs - Marian is the biggest offender here IMO, one of my favourite songs, but for me it doesn't mesh with the rawk posturing of the guitar boys. I'm singing "Giving Ground" to myself this morning, but in my head it's the Sisterhood I hear. And there were a few to many album filler tracks from the Vision Thing era that leave me cold. The crowd seemed a bit muted - lets just say I didn't stand out as an old fossil outlier, and I'd guess a proportion were a bit nonplussed by all the new material, while for me I'd have been happy to get an entire setlist of unreleased songs.
But the audience was there for nostalgia - the classics got noticeably more crowd reaction, and This Corrosion stirred up the biggest singalong of the night in the "finally give 'em what they want" encore. Eldrich refuses to be just a nostalgia act, and good on him, I can't go back in time to make it to the Albert Hall gig I was just too young for and it would be silly to try. So I may not have got what a little bit of me might have secretly wanted, but maybe it was what I needed, just a damn good rock gig.
