REVIEW: The Cult @ Southampton Guildhall 19-09-06

Cards on the table time before we get started: The Cult were one of my favourite bands when I was growing up, a process that I should admit is still very much ‘ongoing’. So it was with no little excitement that I greeted the news that they were playing in my home town after years apart. I may be well into my thirties now but I still have affection for the music I loved in my teens. Hopefully it’s not just me.

In fact it’s definitely not just me if the crowd at the Guildhall were any indication. It wasn’t too hard to spot numerous old rockers, a good handful of Goths in full regalia (they just can’t let it go) along with the usual indie kids et al. The Cult always did attract a diverse audience.

And so to the gig. Southampton Guildhall is not renowned for its acoustic qualities - much like the majority of similar municipal buildings in this country – but the last couple of years have seen marked improvement. Until last night.

Let’s start at the very beginning. There was no support band. This wasn’t an issue in itself as I assumed the main attraction would want to play a longer set. Instead, the band arrived on stage at 9:20 PM. For many that had meant at least an hour of waiting around in what is hardly what you’d call an inspirational space, at the mercy of the horrendously over-priced, over-packed bar. If this already sounds like a whinge then bear in mind that the tickets cost £22.50 (mine was free but that doesn’t mean I have to lie). That’s a lot of money for just over 90 minutes of music.

And that’s the reason we were there: the music. If I had another card to turn over it would say ‘Shoot the sound man/woman’. If this sounds a bit strong then I apologise but even the band knew something was rotten. Cool-as-ever (if that concept has any meaning when you’re his age) guitarist Billy Duffy asked if anyone could hear a humming coming from one of the onstage amps. The answer was ‘yes’. Within three songs I was questioning my desire to stand any more of the frankly hideous, muddy screech coming from the PA system.

They’d had all day to soundcheck. Perhaps the delights of ‘the south’s premier shopping destination’ were just too much for band and crew to resist. At this point they were probably regretting not having any support, as everyone knows that opening acts are only there to allow the engineers to refine the sound thereby making the headliners sound good. Ian Astbury’s voice – before tonight one of the most distinctive and powerful in rock music – was, for the majority of the gig, reduced to an anonymous howl, enveloped with distortion and feedback and often drowned out by Duffy’s guitar wailing.

Luckily for all, the material still stands up (although I appreciate that nostalgia may play a role here). The band wisely drew the majority of the set from their 1980s albums, the shimmering Love, raucous Rick Rubin-produced Electric, and larger-than-life Sonic Temple, with a nod to 1984’s Dreamtime in the form of Spiritwalker. An acoustic version of Edie (Ciao, baby) seemed slightly half-baked but a full-blooded Fire Woman was as barnstorming as its lyrics are dumb, the naiveté of Revolution and Rain was oddly charming while the rock stomp of Electric was exactly what most of us were there for (Peace Dog and Love Removal Machine, anyone?).

Astbury is still a great frontman with bags of attitude and a new-found resemblance to Jim Morrison – no doubt as a result of his role in the recent, litigious resurrection of The Doors. Questioning the crowd’s early lethargy he kept saying: “Come on, wake up for f**k’s sake. It’s The Cult!” while Duffy offered that gigs like these were “as rare as the Yeti”. They had a point though, as the Southampton crowd was customarily stationary. Perhaps they were busy clamping their hands over their ears.

The sound improved towards the end. Not hugely (my ears were shredded by then anyway) but enough for inevitable show-closer She Sells Sanctuary to deliver something of the warm glow I’d been hoping for all night. Then the band finally got the response they were after and even looked, dare I say, strangely grateful.