Lord. Last night I went to Bauhaus, and it was such an evening, I felt I should share.
First, I have never been a rabid Bauhaus fan, though I do have two moments in my life that cemented an affection for them. I’m dating myself here, but whatever, most of you already know I’m ancient:
When I was a teenager my friends and I would drive five hours down to Detroit on weekends to see bands play. I came from the land that rock forgot and this was the closest that me and the other four cool people in my hometown could go for any kind of scene. We would usually crash on people’s floors and hang out for the weekend drinking beer, going to gigs or parties, and listening to new records (yes, actual LP’s, my friends). I was in heaven, surrounded by musicians and punk rock types for the first time in my life, feeling like an adult choosing my own scene.
So one of those times, first thing in the morning the drummer of this particular new wave band we were staying with (cannot remember the name!) put a Bauhaus LP on the turntable, and cranked it LOUD. I think the song was In the Flat Field. Everyone started yelling at him to turn it down, it was cacophonous and frightening, and I loved it! I hadn’t heard much like it before. Remember that this was before people were using the term “goth”. It was all just new music that spoke to our desire to wear black and congregate in seedy clubs with others wearing black, and the record sounded dark and hard in a way I hadn’t heard before.
Second, and around that same time, maybe a little later, I went to the drive-in (yes, LP’s and drive-ins in one blog) to see The Hunger. And of course that first scene blew my mind, with Bela Lugosi’s Dead playing, the way the band looked, the tie-in with vampires, Bowie on film, well the whole thing just flipped me the fuck out. I was bouncing up and down in the car screaming. It was the real start of my serious goth-ness. I was already well into a depressed vampire thing but I thought it was my own idea. I dyed all my clothes black and sat around my basement “apartment” in my parents house writing journals about badly it sucked to live in Michigan. My mother would sigh and tell me I looked like a hooker in mourning (though she did like Bowie, and she thought Lux Interior sang like someone was shaking him the whole time, which really amused me). Anyway, this was well before the internet, purple yarn dreads and Hot Topic vinyl ruled the teenage angst landscape, so to be so cut off and then see these hot guys looking all vampirey and playing a rocking song about Bela Lugosi sent me completely over the edge.
Fast forward to now–I am grown up and will wear other colors, although my nickname at work is still “Dark Lady”. I got a call from one of my very dear friends, we shall call her X for the purposes of this blog, to tell me that another one of our friends, Vicki, is working for and touring with the band and I should call her to get on the list. The first friend, Madame X, dated Daniel Ash on and off for years. She was my roommate and every once in a while I’d wake up to find him sitting in our living room. It was all very surreal.
So I called Vicki and she told me to bring whoever I wanted, and I put on my favorite color and headed up to the Nokia Theatre with my good friend Mike. Mike is way cooler than me and doesn’t really enjoy these oldies shows I drag him to, but he is very tolerant and acts as my date when Drew can’t be there. The venue is great by the way—cordial, unobtrusive security, great sound system, giant, spotless bathrooms, cool photos of the Dolls and Debbie Harry and plenty of room to see the band.
Everyone had been telling me the show was great. But two songs into it and I was yawning. The band sounded tight and sharp and the light show was good, but the charisma was nonexistent. Peter Murphy looked like a cross between Hugh Hefner and Frank Langella as Dracula, albeit much more handsome. He is totally gray with a nice big bald patch in the back, which I can’t fault him for as we are all aging, but that combined with a purple smoking jacket was just a little too suave old dude for my taste. Daniel sported godawful platform moonboot raver shoes, and towards the end, a fuzzy 8th Street faux pimp hat. Not cute.
But whatever, the real problem for me was simply no action on stage, no movement from anyone except Daniel, no speaking in between songs, nothing! Just a dry, professional run-through of the set list. BORING!! Lemmy told me once that all you have to do if you don’t want to dance is just walk around the stage—go to the front, head to the side, step back a few times, just move! Peter is obviously of a different head and felt that standing in one spot looking like a dandied version of someone’s dad was enough.
Okay, so whatever, I got in free, I like the music, a lot of my friends were there, and the crowd was cool. So we watch. About halfway through Mike and I realize that we can use our passes for the VIP balcony section, so we head up there for a beautiful view. I am standing, happily leaning on the railing and watching, when a small, weasely little man shows up and starts pressing into the same spot I’m standing in. I ignore him and continue to watch the show. Thirty seconds later someone from behind pushes me. I turn around, and behind weaselboy is an overweight Jersey semi-goth type, sitting on a stool and leaning back with an air of someone who probably does the door for some crappy bar in the middle of nowhere and as a result regularly behaves like he owns everything. The energy coming off of him is palpably offensive, and I look at him like “What the fuck?” and he says to me:
“You need to move. You took my friend’s place when he went to the bathroom.”
HUH??? I am immediately hot with fury that this oaf first put his hands on me and now has the audacity to think he can tell me what to do. But what happens sometimes when I get really angry is I can’t articulate, so while I wanted to say,
“Listen, tinymeat, I didn’t realize that we were still saving spots like fifth grade girls. I do understand, however, that the only way you are ever able to touch an attractive woman is in this abusive, misogynist manner. But be forewarned that if you ever aspire to set another greasy hand on me again I will call every real man I know in the place, of which there are many, to kick your fat, lame, suburban, loser ass down the stairs.”
What actually came out was a lot of sputtering and asking him what the fuck his problem was. And then his weasely friend had the gall to say to me, “Why don’t you just enjoy the show.”
FUME, RAGE, FUME!!! But I didn’t want to cause a scene and I knew if I got Mike involved it would be bad, so I stayed in my spot, turned around and worked on letting it go, which was VERY hard. I am still sending them balls of rage energy today and I hope that fat fuck has a crappy life.
Grrr…okay, so I do some yoga breaths and we watch the show and wait patiently for the encore, which of course will be Bela Lugosi’s Dead. The band actually puts some kind of SPORTS JERSEY on the bass drum during the encore of Telegram Sam and Ziggy Stardust. Are you kidding me?
And then the lights are up, band is off, time to go home, NO BELA! Again, WTF?!? I understand that they’re probably sick to death of playing it, but please! Now I really think the show sucked. But I am a positive person and there’s still the afterparty where I can see Vicki and maybe have a little fun.
Alas, it was not to be. As we’re making our way downstairs to the backstage area, my foot slips out from under me and I FALL ON MY ASS, down the stairs, in front of everyone. Absolute mortification, such a “Clueless” moment as I become, yes, the person that for the rest of the night will be known as “that girl who fell down the stairs”. Ugh. So embarrassing!! The only levity was one guy saying, “I tried to get a look up your dress but you were too fast!” That made me laugh.
We get backstage and stand in the hallway waiting for action. Chloe Sevigny stands next to me in one of her rotten outfits. I don’t know why fashion editors think she has great taste, I hate everything she wears. And now she’s giving me the I hate you because you’re another female look so I start thinking Chloe’s not that cool on top of having bad fashion sense. But maybe it was just the abusive fat guy and the fall down the stairs that were making me crabby and suspicious.
Vicki, who is stressed out and too busy to hang out, comes by and gives me a hug and gets us into the dressing room where a small and noisy gathering is happening. I don’t know what happened to Chloe and in retrospect I think I left some people behind that I should have gotten into the room, but it happened quickly and I didn’t want to put Vicki on the spot while she raced around. I got to see her for that moment but that was about it and then she was gone. My friends and I—Mike, Timmy, and Joel, park ourselves directly next to the table with the liquor, as is our usual habit, and start drinking.
After about 10 minutes of this another stressed out band employee says to the room, “Five more minutes!” Daniel Ash is standing in front of me and I say,
“Daniel, I can’t leave without telling X I spoke to you.” And he says, in a truly snide tone:
“Oh yes, X. I heard she married the guy she used to babysit.” And as I again sputter and start to tell him he’s wrong and the guy is wonderful, he turns and starts speaking to someone next to him, obviously not remotely interested in even sending his regards.
One more time–WTF?? What is wrong with everybody? This particular woman is one of the kindest, most generous and loving people anyone could ever hope to meet and was certainly tolerant of his self-absorption and neurotic exits and entrances into her life. I couldn’t believe that he would be so dismissive about such a lovely, undeserving person—a person, I might add, that he has written songs about! I turned to Mike and said, “Okay, that’s it. We’re officially done with Bauhaus for the night.”
So that’s my review for this weekend:
Boring.
Fat woman-hating suburban asshole.
No Bela.
Landed on my ass.
Does Chloe Sevigny suck as bad as her clothes? Jury’s still out.
Daniel Ash is a twat.
Fat woman-hating suburban asshole.
No Bela.
Landed on my ass.
Does Chloe Sevigny suck as bad as her clothes? Jury’s still out.
Daniel Ash is a twat.
On the upside, my new corset was a hit and because I’ll use any excuse to get dressed up, if any other vampirey oldsters come to town I’ll be there, tarted up and hoping for the best.
Because hope, unlike aging British musicians, springs eternal.
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