Peter Murphy

So over the weekend I was lucky enough to see Peter Murphy live at the Opera House in Toronto. It was a good show...not great. There were definite high points. But a few factors that spoilt it a little bit.

So I luckily missed the majority of the guy that opened the show. No idea what his name is and I hope that I never hear him again. He kind of sounded like a combination of The Cure and Coldplay...so utter shite in other words. All the songs sort of sounded the same and he comes across like quite the douche. He pushed his cd at the beginning of every song and then proceeded to chat with people all through Peter's set...talk about disrespectful and ignorant. In fact the whole group of people that seemed there to support him seemed like a clique of douches.

But hey, onto Peter. It was his birthday on the 11th. I'd have to check but I think that he is 51, perhaps 52. And you really couldn't tell. He jumps around, does his strange bird thing, struts like Mick Jagger and his voice is as good as ever. In fact I think that as he gets older the deeper registers of his voice get better. He can hold a note forever and all in all puts on a good show. The mix was off a bit, his voice when talking or singing more softly tended to get totally lost. But most of the time he is singing quite loud so that was all good.

The new material was meh. Seems like it is more straight ahead rock than he has done in the past. And it might just be the live mix but it seemed a little bit...mundane. A little bit less vibrant and dynamic than I would expect from someone that put out Dust, Alive: Just for Love, Holy Smoke and of course all the Bauhaus material. But I might change that opinion once I have heard the studio versions.

Once he started pulling out the Bauhaus material that is when the crowd really got into it. That must be a little bit frustrating for Peter, he has done so much else in his career. But they are good songs and he put little twists in here and there that hopefully keep the songs at least a little bit fresh for him. The singing of Bela Lugosi's Dead over the 12 string acoustic chording for A Strange Kind of Love was a high point. As was his attempt at Heart of Gold by Neil Young. Sure he messed up the lyrics, but the fact that Peter Murphy sang a Neil young song is cool enough. Throw in the new cover of Instant Karma, a few lines of No Woman No Cry and Jammin' by Bob Marley and then end the night with a strange spoken word/electronic cover of Space Oddity and it was a really great show.

I can't wait to hear the new album, and the other 2 covers that he is supposedly doing.

Anyone who stumbles across this and doesn't know. Both Instant Karma and Space Oddity are on iTunes.