This was the very definition of an eclectic alternative line-up put together by Stigmata Promotions, combining a headline act featuring a bona fide new wave star of the original wave with a goth legend on guitar, a first support band containing the actress who played the sarcastic punk teenage daughter on the classic My Parents Are Aliens 90’s comedy drama TV show, a third band whose records are released on the label of the brother of Cocteau Twins’ guitarist Robin Guthrie, and the discerning promoter’s go-to act to warm up an often aloof alternative crowd.
Up first were indeed Gothzilla, who over the past few years have performed as a duo with Mike (from The Dead Seasons) assisting main man Tim Jarvis, but this show was sadly the former’s final gig. As ever, Tim’s infectious enthusiasm and “goth and proud” message quickly won over the gathering Sunday night audience, with the earworm choruses of Tightwire and It Is What It Is predictably going down well. As is often the case, their cover of Dead Eyes Opened’s Judy is the highlight, with Toyah’s Ieya also making the setlist on this occasion (which was Mike’s privilege to select on his swan song) and the audience participation of legendary set closer Temple of Sound was as whole-hearted as usual. The new line-up will play at the Deadinburgh Festival in two months’ time.
The Media Whores were up next, with a solid decade plus of fast-paced dark punk’n’roll behind them and boasting a string of releases on Brian Guthrie’s Twenty Stone Blatt imprint. With bands like The Stooges, The Stranglers and The Godfathers as clear influences, the Falkirk-based band injected further pace into the evening with a high octane set full of punch, powerful riffing, and political and polemical lyrics.
Commencing with the incendiary pairing It’s Not Alright and Big Pharma, the pace only dropped slightly with the wonderful JJ Burnel-influenced bass intro to Zombies In Mayfair and new song Break Everything That’s Different, before old favourites Class War, You Can’t Say Whore On The Radio and Money brought the set back to a frenetic climax. The band recently supported Spear of Destiny and have a further upcoming slot opening for original Pistol Glen Matlock in Scotland’s capital later this month.
Slowing the tempo of the evening, main support act The Gospel, a Manchester-based all-female band with LA-born Jimmy Sweet on lead vocals, live up to their promise of an arresting interlude of cinematic goth (of the David Lynch variety). The surprise hit of last year’s Tomorrow’s Ghosts festival at Whitby, The Gospel have inevitably drawn comparisons with Nick Cave due to Sweet’s fallen preacherman croon and the band’s often sumptuous gospel backing which is reminiscent of Sonic Boom at his confessional best, heard to best effect on the spiritual epics like Lord, Can You Hear Me? and set opener Burning Like A Fever, which transfer surprisingly well to a dingy club setting.
The current single The Only One also gets an airing, as does its predecessor, their impressive cover version of Alanis Morissette’s Uninvited, and the band’s stagecraft, with them all lined up across the edge of the stage in matching uniforms with the twin drummers to the fore, means that the spectacle is never less than arresting. Whilst purists might claim that their mainstream-friendly sound lies beyond the boundaries of the usual goth palette, in the 80’s the original wave extended for some to the likes of Miranda Sex Garden, Strawberry Switchblade and Dead Can Dance, and The Gospel are for me a welcome addition to the ranks of the dark side, having converted this miserable sinner to their cause.
Headliner Lene Lovich was already pushing thirty when Lucky Number and Say When stormed the UK top 20 at the height of the kaleidoscopically creative new wave (literally) post-punk era in the late 1970’s, and over forty-five years later her vocal mannerisms, flailing arm movements and magnetic stage presence are as strong as ever. With an act built upon a strong visual image and a kooky individual sound that placed her midway musically in between Siouxsie Sioux and Cyndi Lauder, Lovich’s lesser hit New Toy, tellingly penned by Thomas Dolby, reveals her to be a crucial bridge between the three-chord original punks and off-kilter synth-based eighties dark pop.
The other classic songs performed tonight, such as Angels, Home and Monkey Talk, were written with her then guitarist (and partner) Les Chappell, who continued in the group when her career resumed in 2005 after a fifteen year hiatus, but currently her touring band features Stan Greenwood, still guitarist with seminal 80’s goth act Skeletal Family, who famously supported The Sisters of Mercy on their Black October trek, and the new lynchpin of a very tight live unit that features Lene’s longterm collaborator Morgan King on drums, with Val Gwyther on bass and Sarah Fischer on keyboards. But the real star is Lovich herself, the so-called “Queen of Quirk”, whose proto-gothic stage persona and image (black clothing, startlingly contoured make-up and witch-like hair braids) continues to resonate down the decades. With a hit-filled set that also wisely draws heavily on her strongest albums, 1978’s Stateless and the following year’s Flex, Lovich’s act in 2025 is still as much performance artist as much as it is mere singer, as had been previously the case with David Bowie and was then subsequently the norm with the leading lights of what retrospectively became known as the gothic movement.
Having been enticed to see her ‘live’ for the first time not only by the promise of the impressive support acts which Stigmata Promotions had assembled for this bargain (£20 for four bands) show also but by enthusiastic reviews by trusted musical friends who had seen Lovich in concert themselves in recent years, I would encourage others to catch her in concert whilst (amazingly) she is still in her energetic prime.
