Peter Murphy sings all the hits

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:21:50 +0000

A highlight of our trip to Maryland last week was seeing Peter Murphy in Baltimore, though the less said about the club (and the opening act) the better. The last time we saw him as a solo act was at the 9:30 Club in 2004, when he was being forced into the old tour-to-promote-album-sales paradigm, and the album he was promoting (Unshattered) was just not up to snuff. Consequently he only played a few of his older hits ("They've told me this is not a nostalgia show, " he said). Today everyone knows (except the major labels) that the money is in live performance and merchandising, and the recorded music is more or less a giveaway to promote the shows. So this time he played the hits, though by a twist of fate the ticket price was about half that of the 2004 show. But the songs were glorious: "All Night Long," "Indigo Eyes," "Strange Kind of Love," "Gliding Like a Whale," "Huuvola," even "The Sweetest Drop," a few Bauhaus numbers, a bit of Bowie, and for the final encore, "Cuts You Up." Plus a whole bunch of songs I'm less familiar with. Peter is beginning to show his age as his face wrinkles and his hair thins; he is still spry, though, pogoing at times, even moonwalking (!), and his voice is as effortlessly lovely as ever. He seems quite at home in the role of Elder Statesman of Goth. It was a completely satisfying set. But if I could pick one song from Peter Murphy's catalog to be added to his live repertoire, it would be "Let Me Love You" from Holy Smoke. The slow, mysterious verses just open up and resolve so beautifully into the dreamy major-chord chorus, and who can argue with a sentiment like "Let me love you"? This song always makes me visualize Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, so I've used a graphic from that instead of the traditional album cover:

06-Let Me Love You

Peter Murphy

And if I could choose a second, it would be "The Scarlet Thing In You"--

Peter Murphy - The Scarlet Thing In You

What would you pick?

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peter murphy concert was the bomb!

nobody@vox.com(Crystal) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:45:26 +0000

Peter Murphy

Last night Joe and I hit up the Roxy to see one of my all time favorites, Peter Murphy, play. The opening act, Ali Eskandarian, was, arguably, one of the worst I've ever seen, even more so than the woman who opened up for Morrisey last summer.

It was a short and early show because the Roxy has an annoying tendency to shut everything down by 10PM so that they can open it up as a club later. But WOW, what a great short show it was. There was so much energy and we were up pretty close. Overall, it was one of the best shows I'd seen (and I've seen hundreds, really).

He played "Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem," which is probably my all time favorite song. And "Huvola" was gorgeous and beautiful. The only thing missing from the night was "Cuts You Up," which was supposed to be an encore song but the Roxy was making them go fast. He did do "She's in Parties" as well as two Bauhaus songs from the new album.

I left feeling happy. Just plain, wonderfully happy. The music was wonderful. I had danced all night. Joe had a good time. The evening was oddly foggy but still warm. And we capped it off with a drink from the bar at Rialto, our favorite restaurant.

Yes, a good time really was had by all!

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Vox’s posts tagged peter murphy

Peter Murphy sings all the hits

peter murphy concert was the bomb!