so is chairman box the guy who was manning the merch booth & video cam at the show?
Probably not; there were a lot of people recording stuff in Philly, it seemed.
The venue allowed "small cameras", so I stood front row center and got about 90 pictures of The Warlocks and The Sisters. I felt kind of bad, though; I wondered if anyone (on-stage or off) got annoyed.
First of all, The Warlocks--I think they've lost almost half their band this year so far.
Even so, I thought they sounded miles better than the Vegas show. Some of the songs they played at the end were really good, and if people hadn't been so nonchalant they could have easily jumped around and danced to them. They stepped up the stage show a bit, as well; lots of smoke, and lots of lights! Maybe they are getting tips from The Sisters, as someone said. The biggest disappointment about The Warlocks was, well, the audience. I got the feeling they were playing songs without any pause in between because the audience was barely clapping for them at all when they DID pause. They made a swift exit, too, and didn't even say "thank you" or something similar.
The Sisters of Mercy were amazing; SO much better than the "birthday" show in Vegas. It was cool to hear more songs (including Burn), the sound didn't seem bad at all, and the lights and smoke didn't seem to be lacking, either. I think I should have thanked/praised the technician when I saw him at the end, because the lights and smoke are half of what makes a Sisters concert! Not to mention I'm easily distracted by bright, colorful, moving lights.
Overall, I don't think I could complain about anything; it was pretty much everything I could expect.
The crowd was really diverse, in more ways than one--next to me at the front was an 11 year old girl in an "Utterly Bastard Groovy" shirt, and probably more makeup than I had on. On the other side was the mother of some other girl, who looked like she could have been a fan of The Sisters in the 80's, but didn't know them at all, actually.
Afterwards, about 10-15 people were waiting around the tour bus, and most just wanted to meet Andrew Eldritch. I was out there with them for a looong time--I had literally no where else to go! Ben Christo and Chris Catalyst came out to talk, and even after all that, most of the people still separated the two by saying "the one with the mohawk". One girl made the comment "Andrew's cute, but tell him there's too much smoke--I can barely see him", to which my automatic reaction was "...but that's the point!" Another girl, who asked Ben if he would give Andrew a nice "clean" note for her if she wrote one, decided to lay down on her stomach on the cold, dirty pavement with one foot twirling in the air to write.
I *think* someone asked Chris if there would ever be a new album, and I *think* his reply was that, from the little while he's known Andrew, he didn't think so. Although Ben was really optimistic about it--he said he'd be happier than us fans if he ever got to help release a new Sisters album. He also said the "new stuff" they're writing is basically bits and pieces, not actual songs yet, but I think that's already been mentioned on here? Chris also mentioned he might be coming back to the US soon, as part of some "project" he couldn't tell us anything about.
At one point people were trying to figure out what songs were played, and in what order, the last time The Sisters of Mercy where in Philadelphia. The light technician said he always has to visit som.tours.org to find out what he's done. He got the wrong URL, but I think you can figure out what site he means.
Now that you've probably skipped all that, some pictures (click to enlarge--they might not be all that great):
), so we shared an early taxi back to the hotel. I was grateful in the morning when I actually felt like going down for breakfast for the first time in five days.