When I first saw this gig advertised I jumped at it...why? Well, it's a long story but it all started when a good friend of mine once phoned me all the way back in 1984 (he's phoned me since, so I must have liked what he said) raving about a band he had just seen just on an off chance playing in Leicester.  A place where he was busy building up an overdraft, getting drunk and generally laying about pretending to study for a degree!! The band in question from his excited frame of mind was not the original line up of The Sisters Of Mercy, but the second incarnation when Ben Gunn was replaced with Wayne Hussey, Andrew Eldritch, Craig Adams and the good ole Dr Avalanche, all I heard was that it was "intense" and he never saw the band because of the amount of dry ice on stage.

To say I was intrigued was something of an understatement

Fast forward a few years and I had I spent a lot of the late 80's tracking down some of said band's bootlegs (oops) including singles of tracks like 'Jolene' (I kid you not) and a very pissed two minute version of 'Stairway to Heaven' (Yep THAT 'Stairway To Heaven'), as well as attending some Sisters conventions in Manchester (yearly events), I guess you could say I was a fan, but I was still to actually see the band live.  Then The Sisters went and split up before quickly reforming with just Eldritch, the good Dr and everyone's Goth fantasy figure Patricia Morrison bass, before once again splitting and reforming with amongst others Tony James from Generation X, joining Eldritch and the good Dr, before splitting once again. Three line ups some stunning singles and only three albums and then "nada". And throughout those multiple line up changes you8 know what?  I was always seeing someone else when they did the live rounds, which ultimately became rarer and rarer.  

The Sisters went underground keeping the Sisterhood interested with snippets, the odd gig here and there and only their real diehard fans keeping the mystique alive.  Then as is by magic The Sister's re-appeared, Eldritch along with Uber Rock fave Chris Catalyst (Eureka Machines) in tow, and over the last couple of years in particular, a concerted effort to re-ignite the Sisters legend has gone on, including a Sonisphere appearance in 2011.   So history lesson over, and to the gig in the Roundhouse, a venue I'd never been to previously either.  Tonight was part of a tour billed as their 30^th anniversary tour!!!

First things first, what a stunning venue the Roundhouse is, YOU MUST at some point attend a gig there you will not be disappointed, as long as your inside the ring of Grade 2 listed pillars (reminder - buy floor tickets) the atmospherics are superb, and the sound immense. The only disappointment - the guy who told me the support act was the Eureka Machines lied! There was no support act.  He'd obviously got the Chris Catalyst link wrong (the bastard got me excited there for a minute).

The Sisters kicked in following, believe it or not, an intro tape that included AC/DC, and entered the stage with 'First And Last And Always', followed immediately by a caustic version of 'Ribbons' and then 'Detonation Boulevard', all heavy as hell and definitely showing more than a little of the Catalyst influence.  'Crash And Burn', left us all feeling just that before two personal faves 'Marian' and 'Alice' made their way out of the box marked "secret".  And the classic's kept coming 'No Time To Cry', an epic 'Dominion', 'Arms', a cover of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's 'Gift That Shines' along with The Chantays 'Pipeline', a blinding version of 'Amphetamine Logic' followed by 'A Rock And A Hard place', 'This Corrosion' and then came one of those classic gig moments, as during 'Flood 2' as the music drove on relentlessly a guy stood, bare chested on his mates shoulders adopting the Jesus Christ pose. Facing Eldritch in his trademark shades, dry ice everywhere he faces the would be martyr down as the music reached a peak, the atmospherics were simply intense and then with a blink of an eye they were gone.

Two encores followed, 'Something Fast' and 'Lucretia' first, then a return that fair took the roof off the Roundhouse with 'More', 'Vision Thing' and an apocalyptic 'Temple Of Love'.

It's taken me 27 years to catch the Sister's live performance, something that saddens me after following them for so long, but this was the right time, in the right place with the right band and it won't be as long next time.

One question though still haunts me leaving this show though and that is with only three albums in 30 years we could do with a new album, so you got anything in the pipeline Mr Eldritch?? Your choice of format!!