The Metal Files

I first saw The Cult almost 3 years ago to the day of last night’s show.  I got in for free that night while walking home to my old apartment that was next door to the venue.  I remember being pretty bored and that their performance was pretty lackluster.  I liked their studio stuff, the radio hits at least, mainly because a band that I played in from 92-95 covered several of their songs.  It was easy yet fun stuff to drum to.

Not sure exactly why I bought a ticket for last night’s show when they first went on sale.  Maybe I wanted to see that they improved from that show 3 years ago.  Who knows what my mind frame was that night in 2012, but whatever.  I got the ticket and went.

The opener was the pseudo local band called Leopold and His Fiction.  They classify themselves as garage rock, blues and folk.  I generally withhold getting negative about bands on here, but fuck it.  That band was absolutely fucking horrible.  I got there with three or four songs left and just kept thinking, “what the fuck is going on here?”  The crowd was very unresponsive to them.  After each song, I swear I couldn’t hear one person clapping or cheering.  When they finished their set, they didn’t say anything and just walked off stage.  No goodbye, see ya, thanks, fuck off, nothing.  Maybe that’s part of their shtick?  I can’t care.  I just hope they’re never on another bill of a show that I go to.

The Cult was scheduled to play from 9:10 to a hard curfew 10:30 because of Austin’s sound ordinance.  They hit the stage on time and opened with Horse Nation from their 1984 debut Dreamtime and went right into Rain.  Ian Astbury’s voice sounded pretty good, better than what I remembered from 2012.  They mixed their set up with what you’d expect to hear like Love Removal Machine, Fire Woman, Lil’ Devil, etc.  I enjoyed hearing Spiritwalker and Sweet Soul Sister quite a bit.  They played a couple from more recent albums and those sounded really good.

The band was very solid, as expected, and I didn’t realize that John Tempesta was their drummer.  You might remember him from such metal bands as Testament, Exodus, White Zombie and being part of Anthrax’s tech crew.  Midway through the set Ian’s vocals got a little rough and he stated that he had a “nasal infection”.  It didn’t seem to phase him too much as he sounded really good overall.

I hung back by the soundboard for the show, which was about 2/3 full.  Plenty of space to move around and I could have gotten closer had I cared to.  I could see the setlist from the lighting tech’s rig.  They had about 4-5 more songs listed than what they played.  They ran over their curfew by about 10 minutes.  Stubb’s was quick to get people out afterwards.

I enjoyed the show and enjoyed seeing some folks that I hadn’t seen in too long as well.  Only thing I wanted to hear that I didn’t was Edie (Ciao Baby) and Peace Dogs would have been cool, too.