★★★☆☆
Alexandra Palace was the venue for a giant fancy dress party as thousands of zombies, vampires and ghosts gathered to witness the first London concert in 15 years by the reunited goth-rock veterans Bauhaus. Twice postponed by the pandemic, this rocky horror show was rescheduled for the night before Halloween. Consequently, the audience were dressed even more theatrically than the band’s famously histrionic singer, Peter Murphy, who arrived on stage twirling a cane and garbed in a Victorian frock coat. Even at 64, with the shocking beauty of his razor-cheekboned youth fading, he remains quite the dandy.
Despite writing songs about vampires and spending their early years driving around in a hearse, Bauhaus have always shunned the goth label. Arguably they protest too much, but this show was a pleasing reminder that the arty Northampton quartet started out as post-punk contemporaries of Joy Division and Public Image Ltd as much as the Cure or the Sisters of Mercy. Skeletal funk rhythms, expansive dub textures and wild free-jazz tangents were woven into early numbers such as Double Dare and The Spy in the Cab. Bauhaus put the disco into discordant.
Unlike most bands of their vintage, Bauhaus have retained a thrillingly raw, visceral, experimental edge. While Murphy’s still-powerful voice careened between strangulated croak and feral howl on high-drama songs such as In the Flat Field and The Passion of Lovers, Daniel Ash’s guitar was all jagged scrapes, disruptive shudders and coffin-lid creaks. One of the band’s biggest hits, She’s in Parties, opened out into an enjoyably rambling avant-rock instrumental.
A few plodding lulls marred this mostly impressive show. The crepuscular prowl of Bela Lugosi’s Dead, a signature Bauhaus classic, sounded disappointingly sluggish. With bare stage and no screens, the low-tech production also felt dated and conventional. In a venue this huge, more theatrical presentation would have served the music better.
Even so, the night ended on a high with a volley of vintage cover versions, including the band’s most successful single, an electrifying glam-punk assault on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. The assembled zombie hordes screamed along to every word.
Advertisement
Follow @timesarts on Twitter to read the latest reviews