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JOSEPH'S WELL (04/06/98)
Another year, another live show of Sister's music at Joseph's Well. A very tight set (with the odd deliberate mistake thrown in for authenticity :), including most of the old favourites, plus Comfortably Numb/SKOS and Come Together (but we're still waiting for Confide in Me to be included). Anybody with a couple of hours to spare (cos they certainly do a long set!) should definitely check out these Murphy boys. When the dry ice hit its peak and the backlighting came on it could almost have been the Albert Hall. And dare I suggest that their First, Last & Always is even better than the real thing? Rumour has it that the Duke-Williams chappy was seen buying a t-shirt, so that proves something (or was ODW was under the influence?) Rise and Regurgitate indeed!@
Ian A year and a day after the Sisters' legendarily ropey warm-up gig for last summer's European tour, and The Sisters of Murphy have returned to the scene of that particular crime. The Smurphs (who are yet to exploit the humouruous potential of their nickname, and paint themselves blue) are perhaps the best known of a small number of Sisters tribute bands, so we thought it was high time we checked them out...
This particular set of Sisters are three strong, an Eldritch-alike singer
being backed up a bass playing Wayne-alike and a guitarist you doesn't look
like any particular Sister, but plays his guitar well enough and seems like a
nice chap, so we won't make an issue of it. Their visual style is largely
based on the 'First and Last and Always' era, with the singer favouring
streaming raven hair, dark shades and an iffy hat. Add to this mix an
impressively large amount of smoke and lights, and you don't have to screw up
your eyes much to be able to think that it all rather resembles 'Wake'. With
verissimilitude being the theme of the night, your reviewer played along and
decided to re-create the trippy 'Wake' video effects by consuming large
amounts of booze beforehand.
The sound of the Smurphs mirrors the visuals, with the lengthy set being
dominated by 'F&L&A' and earlier songs. The subsequent albums each merit a
couple of songs, and the band keep themselves reasonably up-to-date by
including versions of Come Together and the Comfortably Numb/Some Kind Of
Stranger medley as well. Tellingly, perhaps, these later songs sound as if
they've been filtered through a Sisters'85 effects unit, with Come Together -
the only really leaden performance of the evening - in particular suffering.
However this is something a petty criticism - some of you hankering for the
old days might call it a blessing - as the Smurphs by and large deliver a
mighty fine rendition of the Sisters back catalogue, that is musically rather
closer to the original records than some of the sludge-bound renditions heard
at real Sisters gigs in recent years. You're unlikely to mistake these
Sisters for the real thing, missing, rather crucially, Von's guile and a
monsterous lighting rig, but if you can't afford to book the genuine article
for your imminent Bar Mitzvah, then you could do worse than to book the
Sisters of Murphy.
Tribute bands don't exactly shriek 'originality', but at least they're honest
in their intentions, unlike the legion of copyist bands who use the same
sound-like-the-Sisters effects box to spruce up their own uninspired efforts.
The last tribute band that your reviewer inadvertantly clapped ears on were a
nightmarish sim-Spice Girls - Hull fishwives the lot of them - who were so
alarmingly off-key that they had queasy punters running for cover, so the
Smurphs were a welcome several rungs up on the food chain. But more than
this, they also have the power to induce nausea, and are prophetic about it:
'Rise and Regurgitate' was the motto on their t-shirts, and lo! after rising
the following morning and struggling in to work, I did indeed regurgitate the
previous night's beer, in quite impressive fashion if truth be need be.
Christ, where's the mop...? |