Tonight’s support is the exceedingly strange Richard Strange,
who has arrived with a seven piece band who are a real mix of oldies and
youngies. Richard Strange himself is 67.
As I understand it his show is based
on his 1981 concept album ‘The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange’ which was described
as a ‘political fantasy’. I take it that Strange now sees this as shockingly relevant
given the election of Donald Trump and Brexit. In fact he unveils a banner
proclaiming ‘Enemy Of The People’ at the end.
It’s more theatre than music, with Strange wearing a balaclava at one point, which I gather it’s supposed to
be and some of the ‘acts’ are quite long. In fact when he promises us ‘one more’,
a man somewhere said 'no'. Out of time.
The last time I saw the Psychedelic Furs was here in Leicester
in 1991 on the ‘World Outside’ tour. I’m not quite returning to the scene of a
crime as that was at the wonderful, yet now sadly demolished, De Montfort
University’s old Student Union.
These days it's good to see that one of the bands of your
youth are not only still together but still alive. Sadly it's the way things
are going.
Currently the group consists of the Butler brothers Richard on
vocals and Tim on bass along with Mars Williams (saxophone), Amanda Kramer (keyboards),
Paul Garisto (drums) and Rich Good (guitar).
Richard Butler took the stage last and it’s reassuring to
see he’s still not taken that coat off.
There's no John Ashton in the band these days but returning
tonight is original guitarist Roger Morris. He left the band after the first two
albums at which point the band's sound mellowed somewhat and became famous for not
just Richard Butler’s outstanding voice but for the addition of quite a bit of saxophone
as well.
Morris only plays on the stuff he knows which means he’s
busy at the start as they open with ‘Dumb Waiters’ and ‘Into You Like a Train’.
Then he takes a break as they tackle the likes of ‘Highwire Days’. It’s a nice moment when halfway
through the set old and new guitarists shake hands in mutual respect.
It’s pretty much a ‘hit’ filled set, not that the band had many
actual hits, although there are quite a few omissions that I won’t grumble
about.
The band haven’t released a record for 27 years and quite openly
just enjoy playing for the fun of it without any pressure from record companies
or the like. This sense of fun really stood out and the whole band seemed to
have a ball.
They close the set with the poppy ‘Heaven’ before returning
for the awesome twosome of ‘India’ and then ‘Pretty in Pink’.
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