Siouxsie at Astoria2

Oct 19, 2007 by Owen

Siouxsie’s return to the London stage after the release of her new solo album, “Mantaray” was a triumph.

Siouxsie came on stage to rapturous applause and launched into “Israel” followed by “Arabian Knights”, and that was the gauntlet thrown down right there and then. She is Siouxsie and has a back catalogue to die for. That established the tone for the rest of the set, mixing Banshee classics with songs from the new album and that approach worked exceptionally well, new and old songs seemlessly meshing. There were no songs from The Creatures but that might be down to the absence of Budgie.

Siouxsie strutted across the stage, arms weaving in dramatic gestures, legs kicking high in trademark stilettos, hands slapping her thighs in time to the drums, throwing back her head one moment and leaning in to tease the front of the audience the next. She was in great voice and the band was tight. She looked good in a harlequin body suit, slender and lithe, scarlet lips and black on black wild hair. Siouxsie is back and, judging from how she was last night, enjoying herself.

She was on stage for around 1 hour followed by two encores of two songs each. The sound was excellent and that made up for the poor lighting. Highlights were the wonderful ‘Dear Prudence’ (preceded by Siouxsie saying, ‘do we have to do this one?’), ‘Nightshift’ (atmospheric in the dark surroundings), ‘Here Comes That Day’ (the new single), ‘One Mile Below’ and ‘Sea of Tranquility’ (from the new album). The set closed with a great version of ‘Into A Swan’, obviously set to be her new anthem after launching the album.

While waiting for the encore I joked that she’d come back with ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and that’s what happened. The marvellous ‘Hong Kong Garden’ opened the encore followed by the spectacular ‘Spellbound’. A second encore treated us to the moody ‘Swansway’ and ‘Hello, I love you’ (the Doors song).

The audience was an interesting mix of old punks and former goths, a surprising number of smartly dressed women, a smattering of wierd and wonderful haircuts and piercings (I liked the woman with a huge mass of lime green hair in the middle of the crowd) and the usual mob of fat, middle aged, drunk men getting too boisterous in the name of their own enjoyment at the expense of everyone else (especially unpleasant when they smell of stale sweat and beer). At such a gathering of the clans I suppose that’s to be expected.

The queen has returned and we must worship.