The Sisters of Mercy had a huge mystique about them in the eighties. Despite their claims that they had nothing to do with the G word, they were undisputed leaders in making dark, brooding anthems for a whole generation of black clad denizens, offering a cinematic scope and grandeur in their music that few of their genre peers were able to touch. The Sisters of Mercy offered something big and bombastic, a dramatic and explosive sound with orchestral flourishes and haunted choirs. It was completely over the top in all ways, but it was also really Really REALLY good, and their songs fully captured the hearts and imagination of the Goth scene at the time.
But as bombastic and epic as their recorded output was, the Sisters of Mercy weren't very well known at the time for playing shows, especially shows in North America. There had been a few dates in the US in support of the first album but not the steady flow of gigs that some of their peers were doing, and as far as I know there weren't any shows in support of their 1987 opus "Floodland" outside of some TV appearances on Top of The Pops and that kind of thing.
If you read my last post about Depeche Mode, you'll know that a new job had me saving and planning for a vacation that year, and reading in Melody Maker about all of the great shows happening in London I had decided that would be the ideal destination, so it was just a matter of choosing when my best opportunity would be. When the Sisters announced a pair of dates at Wembley Arena I was intrigued, and my choice was made even more clear when I realized that one of the dates was scheduled on my birthday.
So I went to London, and on November 26th 1990 I found myself at Wembley Arena for the Sisters of Mercy. This would have been for the "Vision Thing" tour, and there weren't any North American dates planned at the time so it was kind of a big deal for me. This was when Tony James was playing bass, and Andreas Bruhn and Tim Bricheno were also in the band. It goes without saying that Doktor Avalanche was on drums, it wouldn't be the Sisters without Doktor Avalanche, and of course Andrew Eldritch was doing vocals.
When the lights went down the band walked out to a drum intro that launched into First and Last and Always from the first album, and the crowd went kind of nuts. Wembley Arena is a fairly big venue, about the same size or maybe a bit bigger than Maple Leaf Gardens, and I had a decent view from the middle side about two sections to the left of the stage that gave me a great perspective of the show, close enough to see the band but far enough away to appreciate the spectacle. Eldritch was wearing a snake skin shirt with a band collar close to his neck, aviator sunglasses, and his hair was freshly cut short in contrast to all of the promo pictures for the album and shows where he had shoulder length hair. Tony James wore a top hat in a nod to his days with Sigue Sigue Sputnik, but I don't remember what the rest of the band were wearing. Whatever it was I'm sure that they were quite dashing.
After a strong opening the band moved into Lucretia, My Reflection from "Floodland" highlighting James' deep bass skills which were pretty impressive but admittedly not as strong as Patricia Morrison who had played on the original version. An elongated opening for Ribbons followed, adding to the song's tension, building around repeated guitar lines and the growing unease in Eldritch's vocals. There's always been an inherent tension within the Sisters' music, that's a large part of their appeal, and that live version of Ribbons walked a particularly fine line that night.
Their performance of Dominion was dramatic and epic, going over the top in full Steinman enhanced glory, in contrast to Marian and Alice which were both delivered in a more direct and immediate way, rippling with a dark energy that wrapped around the audience. There were apocalyptic takes on Gimme Shelter and This Corrosion, and Temple of Love rolled on forever and ever and ever, twenty thousand people all doing an epic Goth dance while a set of three hanging mobiles raise and fell above the stage reflecting lights and bouncing lasers around the venue. They closed the night with a ferocious version of Vision Thing and a roaring run through 1969 that would have made Iggy Pop proud. It was all pretty awesome.
A few months later the Sisters finally made it to Toronto for a show at Massey Hall with Danielle Dax, and while it was still a big and mighty performance that I completely enjoyed, it had kind of lost something in a smaller venue, a certain power and driving force that was fully evident in their show at Wembley just didn't make it to Toronto. I've thought about it a little bit since and I've come to realize that the Sisters of Mercy aren't really a band made for intimate venues or for individual reflection, they don't gain anything from small spaces. They're more meant for big noisy environments with big crowds, open spaces that they can fill up with a wall of sound that threatens to topple over at any moment, crushing everything that makes the mistake of coming too close. That big sonic energy is at the heart of what the Sisters of Mercy do, and I'm glad that I had the chance to see it in full effect that night in 1990.
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