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Date: Wed, 15 Jul 92 10:54:48 PDT
From: Greg.Dykema[at]-remove-Eng.Sun.COM (Greg Dykema)
Subject: jbc tour 92
All right, all right, I realize I'm horribly delinquent with this, but
better late, right?
I went to the San Jose (CA) show at F/X. The crowd was quite small to
begin with, but worse it seemed that at least half the people were just
there for the opening bands. I don't remember the name of the first
one, we came in the middle of their set. The F/X has a frightfully
well-tuned PA system with rather low ceiling which just bounces
everything straight off of it. Unfortunately, we were in time to catch
all of the second opener, one "Mute Angst Envy," who failed to live up
to the first part of their name and were way too loud. An awful gloom
band in the current grindgoth style. I spent the entire time watching
their bassist who playing his bass like a rhythm guitar, moving his
hand faster than the lead guitarist!
But this is all about the Butcher, so we endured MEA and waited patiently
for the JBC and watched people start to drift out of the club. Pat came on
and announced "Hi, we're the Velvet Underground. We'd like to thank the
Mission for opening up for us," to general amusement and confused looks
from MEA wandering around in the audience. He also muttered something
about his band including no former members of Bauhaus. When Partytime
started (what was that about General Gates?), we went down to the front,
and more people left. The conspiracy seemed rather subdued and it took a
couple of songs for Pat to get in the groove. It was interesting watching
Dooj transform from shy and laid back to Townsend-style licks. It got the
feeling Pete would've been happier playing behind a curtain off stage, and
we wouldn't have missed him. He certainly lent nothing to the visual aspect
of the show.
By the middle of the set, we were down to about 50-60 people in the club,
most up front. We were quite enthusiastic, though. Best quote of the evening:
"I love you guys. You're small but perfectly formed." There were several
more VU comments throughout the set, including several variations on
is a song about Margarita but I just want to drink her tequila."
The song list seemed pretty standard, judging by the other comments, although
we were probably the only ones to be treated to a solo version of "Hungarian
Love Song." Someone shouted it out and Pat couldn't believe it. He commented
that we couldn't possibly want to hear that, which of course got everyone
cheering and shouting. The rest of the conspiracy just watched in amusement
as Pat picked out the first verse and chorus, a bit uncertainly, but satisfy-
ing nonetheless.
The standard set didn't end with Racheland--that was second to last. I think
She's On Drugs was the last one before the encore ("I think it's time to pick
things up again"). The encore was Take the Skinheads Bowling and something
else.
I also caught part of an interview with Pat on the radio (San Jose State
station). He related a rather humorous tale about Andrew Eldritch of the
Sisters of Mercy. The Butcher is a Sisters fan, believe it or not. If you
haven't heard the story, I can attempt to tell it.
greg