Siouxsie
The Violets
Astoria 2, London
Friday October 19 2007

Booking The Violets to support Siouxsie must be someone's idea of making a point.

For The Violets, of course, are not without a certain Siouxsie-esque style themselves, although some middle-aged geezer down the front makes a different connection as soon as he claps eyes on Alexis' blonde bob. 'Hazel O'Connor!' he shouts, before being sat on by the idiot police.

And yes, the audience tonight is indeed somewhat biased towards the middle-aged geezer end of the spectrum: boisterous blokes with beers, old school Siouxsie fans, here for old times' sake. None of them have ever heard of The Violets, but they're about to get their heads rearranged.

With all the snap, crackle and pop of a freshly poured bowl of Rice Krispies, The Violets send out a wake-up call to a crowd that could probably do with hearing it. Playing tonight with a re-revised line-up, and (yet another) new bassist, the band send neatly packaged energy bursts into the audience, each one tied together with blue sparks of post-punk electricity. It's a short set, but then The Violets always play short sets. You want quantity, you go see Bruce Springsteen. You want quality delivered with impeccable new wavey brio, here it is.

It really shouldn't be necessary to labour this point, but then again maybe it needs to be said, since I've seen so many people getting confused: this is Siouxsie as a solo artist. No Banshees, not never, no more.

The distinction between 'Siouxsie' and 'Siouxsie And The Banshees' might be a little fuzzy for some - I've seen both terms used interchangably, and I'm sure there are at least a few people here tonight who think they're watching Severin and Budgie on stage - but to anyone who ever saw the Banshees in full effect on tour, there's surely no way tonight's bunch of blandly competent musos could be mistaken for Siouxsie's previous gang.

However, any doubts as to whether Siouxsie herself will acknowledge her past are instantly dispelled as the band launches into a creditable version of 'Israel' - and the old schoolers in the crowd, possibly slightly relieved that they won't have to get their heads around any of that pesky new material straight off, go dutifully mosh-crazy.

Siouxsie works the crowd like a trouper, throwing shapes and making moves in a costume that's part cat suit and part jester's outfit. She's obviously not about to rest on any laurels, and having softened up the punters with 'Arabian Nights', she wheels on the new stuff in the shape of 'Here Comes That Day', one of the assertive glam anthems with which her new album is liberally sprinkled.

That's very much the area we're in tonight, it seems - big stompy glam-rock sounds, thumped out by the anonymously capable squad of black-clad backing musicians, who make up what they lack in personality with an unequivocal ability to rock it up. It makes for a suitably thumping gig, and Siouxsie leads from the front with an appropriately powerful vocal performance.

I believe it was Steve Severin who once said - somewhat uncharitably, but accurately - that Siouxsie is either 'on', or she's 'off'. If you catch an 'off' performance, you'll get a lacklustre show and a haphazard vocal in which more notes are missed than hit. But if you get Siouxsie on an an 'on' night, there's nobody to touch her.

Well, she's definitely 'on' tonight, detonating every song as if hurling hand grenades at a target. This approach works best on the big stompy numbers - 'Into A Swan' sounds like an attempt to carpet-bomb T-Rex from a great height - but at other times, when a touch of glacial new wave cool is called for (as on 'Night Shift') or a certain slink and slither becomes necessary (as with 'Sea Of Tranquility') the band's tendency to swamp everything in glam-rock bood and guts begins to get a little tiresome.

Oh, for Severin's immovable cool on bass, or the offhand genius of John McGeoch! Still, the mix of old and new, coupled with the full-on delivery, seems to hit the spot with the audience, and when 'Hong Kong Garden' crops up towards the end the old school blokes down the front nearly explode with joy. A final encore, comprising a slow, crooning version of 'Into A Swan' (perhaps Siouxsie's looked into my head, and decided to prove she can do more than just rock out), and then a romp through The Doors' 'Hello, I Love You' to wrap it up.

I'm left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, that was a fine show, full of energy and fire. I can't fault Siouxsie's sheer showbiz verve. She's obviously decided to launch herself at the future like a guided missile, and given how far she's come and how much she's achieved already, that's an impressively bold strategy.

But you know what? The trouble with tonight's glam-slam extravaganza was simply this. It was a good Siouxsie gig, but it wasn't a Banshees gig.

Siouxsie: Website | MySpace
The Violets: MySpace

For more photos from this gig,
find the bands by name here.

de!