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| Ulster Hall, Belfast 30th September 2006
I've been a Cult fan since their formation back at the dawn of the 80s. Southern Death Cult, Death Cult, Red Indians, Goth, Psychedelia, Heavy metal. I've been with them through every schizophrenic genre jumping twist and turn of their career for the last 20 odd years, and I more or less liked all of it bar a few exceptions. With tribal twins Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy on board they have a great guitarist and a charismatic frontman. Astbury is a real focal point and showman plus he's an ex Belfast punk? So that gets him extra brownie points. He actually pointed out during this show tonight where he claims he used to stand when he went to gigs here. I've seen the Cult live a number of times over the years including gigs in London like the rocktastic overblown "Electric" show in 86 / 87. So I was delighted when I saw this date announced in the local press a few months back. It was the the first Cult gig in Belfast since the "Ceremony" tour approximately 15 years ago but joy turned to horror when I saw the ticket price £30.00 quid, yeah thats right £30.00 fucking quid a skull! To be honest I didn't think they were worth that kind of cash and I convinced myself it was a bit of a rip off. So I put off buying tickets in advance hoping that I could pick up a couple cheap ones outside the venue from the local scalpers. Well to cut a long story short I ended up paying the full whack £60.00 for me and my 12 year old son Steven who I took along to continue his rock'n'roll education as good all ages gigs here are a rarity. But in the end it was money well spent and Steven loved it! The hall was absolutely packed to the rafters for the last gig of the current UK tour, the extortionate ticket admission and drink prices in the venue were obviously no deterent. For reasons not explained there was no support band to break up the monotony which was making the audience restless after standing around bored for an eternity with nothing to do but throw empty plastic beer bottles and glasses at each other from one end of the hall to the opposite. Without warning at 9.20pm the lights went down, the latest Justin Timberlake single which actually sounded quite good at concert volume stopped and the Walter Carlos 'Clockwork Orange' theme boomed from the speakers creating an eerie atmosphere as the Cult now a five piece took to the dark dry ice covered stage cranked up their instruments and blasted into 'Lil Devil', the crowd went mental and it was just one class song after another as the Cult took the Ulster Hall by the scruff of the neck and rocked the place to its foundations with an action packed impressive17 song set. Which included a couple of acoustic renditions of 'Star' and 'Edie (Ciao Baby)' through to the encore of the goth disco fave 'She Sells Sanctuary'. The Cult have such a strong catalogue of material to draw from they couldn't fail, each and every song sounded massive. They were an awesome spectacle, the sound was perfect but it wasn't a big stage show there was nothing flashy effects wise they relied on pure talent and experience and they delivered in spades. Astburys faux Irish accent became tiring after a while and he still spouts hippy crap, after a fine rendition of 'Revolution' he says "Politics are bullshit" in that sincere patronising tone, "we're not movie stars, just people making music". Forgetting that they kept the pissed off audience waiting for the best part of 90 mins listening to one of the worst compilation tapes ever till it suited them for the show to begin. Then in the next breath theres a spinal tap moment when he berated a hapless roadie for not tightening his mic stand properly and angrily shouting with a straight face "how am I supposed to rock with a broken mic stand". This was also a tempremental rock star trait Billy Duffy showed later on after his guitar effects wouldn't work properly. After mumbling to himself during an earlier song he also slagged off a roadie in full view of everyone. For all his onstage attempts at trying to come across as just an ordinary guy Ian Astbury has pretentious and precious written all over him but thats not always a bad thing. He's a cut above/a star performer! Throughout the show he threw four or five tambourenes into the audience without decapatating anyone, causing mini wrestling matches to break out amongst fans trying desperately to hold onto the piece of Cult memorabilia they had just caught flying in mid air from the grabbing hands. When alls said and done apart from minor gripes on my part this was one of the best gigs I've been to. And I've been to a few shows in my time. Hopefully they won't wait another fifteen years to return because we'll all be too old to rock'n'roll by then. As the t-shirts said CFFC. Joe Donnelly - Belfast 1/10/06 |
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