Peter Murphy – at The Fonda Theatre – Hollywood, CA

Undead undead undead. That’s what many fans at the Peter Murphy show looked like as they arrived in droves to fill up the sold out venue Saturday night in Hollywood. It was the second of two sold out nights at the legendary Henry Fonda Theatre, and it was sold out for good reason. 

 

The Godfather of Goth was in town and in tow were an onslaught of Bauhaus favorites that were once again brought back to life by Peter and his solo band after being buried nearly a decade ago. It has been 7 years since Bauhaus has played in the area, so for many this is as close to the real thing as they could hope to see live in 2013.

It would be unjust to try and tackle these songs before a live audience without proper planning and strategy. For the skeptics out there, they would be silenced by Peter and co’s professional approach to cult classic tracks that are not easy to perform, especially before a rabid crowd. The Mr. Moonlight tour has been in full swing since early Spring of this year so the band were expected to be firing on all cylinders and bringing Bauhaus songs to life in a way that is almost on par with the backing of Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins.

   Enjoy the video overview of the show

Doing those songs justice in a live setting is what they did, it wasn’t easy, but it certainly did happen over the weekend at The Fonda. All the reverb heavy guitar licks, echo chorus and fretless bass playing did happen in a way that worked just like it did for the original band, everything was dialed in and it came off sounding huge, in fact heavier than Peters band normally sounds live. Drum duties were covered as well, all the right percussion samples and triggers were emulated just like Kevin Haskins kit had sounded on the last two Bauhaus reunion tours, there wasn’t an uncovered base. As for vocals, Peter sang and worked the stage with more passion than previously seen on any of his recent solo tours that have stopped in LA, and that is saying a lot since he plays shows that are often for the books.

Choosing the set list may have been a challenge for this band who has so many songs to choose from that would absolutely drive a crowd wild. How can a band satisfy everyone’s tastes when everyone is so critical these days? One would suppose the thing to do is just to play what feels natural and sounds best, and that‘s probably what they felt they did.

It would be fair to say that Peter and his band chose most of the right songs to play aside from a few duds that could have been replaced with selections that would have made this concert one for the ages. Seeing as how it was filmed for what we assume to be a live DVD release, we hope that some of the switched out songs from Friday nights set will find their way into a DVD track list. We hope that does include Saturday nights versions of Ziggy Stardust (the show closer) and Hollow Hills which had a female guest onstage spinning in a hypnotic fashion which would probably bring most people to vomit had they not been under Peters vampiric trance. The T. Rex cover Telegram Sam had power over the audience in a way that would make Marc Bolan blush if he was still here with us.

Speaking of Vampires, the Bauhaus signature song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” was dedicated to none other than Bela Lugosi Jr. who was in attendance. One would assume if a Lugosi is in the audience that the show must be the place to be and one that former Bauhaus members would be proud to perform at.

If this concert does get released for a live DVD, then it is one you will definitely want to own and it is certainly a show we were glad to be at as it was the best show you could be at in LA over the weekend.

 

       

    More photos of the show can be seen HERE

-Louie Bones-
Big Wheel Staff Reporter

 

 

 

 

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