The Cult made a comeback of sorts a few years ago with their excellent Beyond Good And Evil album. Founding members, Ian Astbury (vocals) and Billy Duffy (guitars) grabbed longtime drummer Matt Sorum, who had left them a while back to join Guns & Roses, and decided to hit the road again in support of this new album. Sorum is now in Velvet Revolver with ex-Gunners Slash and Duff. I jumped at the opportunity to see The Cult for the first time when they played the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, in 2001. This was essentially the same concert that appears on this DVD, only the DVD show was filmed at Los Angeles's Olympic Auditorium. I remember leaving the show saying to my wife that it was one of the best club concerts I had ever seen. She agreed.
Music Without Fear does a decent job at capturing that live show, but this is not one of their best performances. Much of the energy of the concert I attended wasn't fully captured on this DVD recording. In a good move, the band brought along a rhythm guitarist (Mike Dimkich) to supplement the live sound, and he added some extra depth and power to the mix. Billy Morrison handled the bass guitar duties for this tour. They both played well and showed a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Billy Duffy, on the other hand, looked like he didn't even want to be there. He just stood in one spot, never really interacting with the crowd or his band mates. Ian Astbury is the quintessential rock and roll front-man. He exudes charisma and sex appeal, and has great rapport with the crowd. This is one of the reasons he was chosen to fill Jim Morrison's shoes on the latest Doors tour.
This show was recorded only a few weeks after 9/11, and it had an obvious affect on Astbury. Tell me this isn't one of the best intro's you've ever heard to get a crowd pumped for a song. Just before the new song "Take The Power", he addresses the crowd with the following: this is a "time to rebuild...a spiritual gathering...until September 11th nobody fucking knew what was going on, but now everyone is fucking tuned in! We are right there with you. There is a solution - TAKE THE POWER!" Damn, that sent chills down my red-blooded American spine. And all that from a bloody Brit. Unfortunately his singing was not up to par with his patriotic enthusiasm during this show. His vocals sounded very strained. He sounded much better when I saw them live, or maybe I was just too caught up in the moment to notice.
Article comments
1 - Chris Beaumont
Nice Review, I got to see them live a few years ago and it was an incredible set. I've been thinking of picking this up for awhile, along with the videos disk.
2 - Temple Stark
Paul,
I hope I didn't screw up the formatting here (and I just noticed its less messed up at Advance.net.
Anyway, I've moved this over to Advance.net - the land of hundreds of thousands of readers a week.
Let your contacts know - and thanks for the review. It seems a remarkably short playlist, however. - Temple
3 - Chris
17 tracks over an 75-90 minutes sounds about right. It looks similar to the set I saw them perform in NY.
4 - Paul Roy
This particular show was 86 minutes, which is pretty respectable these days.