For my third and final Boston gig this week I got to experience a moody Ian Astbury (he eventually cracked a smile and told the crowd to stop it when we all started chanted “Ian, Ian, Ian…“) and a group of lean mean guitar players backed by some serious drumming. Welcome to The Cult – Electric 13 Tour at the House of Blues! Yes this classic British band formed in 1983 were back in the States on their 30th anniversary (the only original members are lead singer Astbury and lead guitar Billy Duffy).
The first half of their set was the excellent Electric album (1987) in it’s entirety which includes the songs Wild Flower, Peace Dog, the legendary Lil’ Devil, Electric Ocean and Love Removal Machine. The stage was backed by numerous images for each song from renaissance pictures to a young Napoleon and a B-52 (Peace Dog)!
Following the first set there was then a short break with an interesting black and white art house movie made by a Boston filmmaker which basically showed a samurai messing about with his sword and then a few brief glimpses of a Geisha! No idea what that was all about, but it was relatively brief and the band returned shortly after for their second set to play a mix of their songs from other albums followed by an encore.
The second part of the show included songs like the classic She Sells Sanctuary, Sweet Soul Sister and Rise. To the call of “Boston Strong” the encore was Spirit Walker and Sun King. By this stage the crowd up front had changed a bit and people started to crowd surf, most punters were not really interested in that and the few that went up basically ended up on the floor! All in all a good night, the band were tight and although Astbury wasn’t necessarily having the best night he still put on a great show!
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