The spirit is willing but the equipment isn't able. That just about sums up the Sisters' fourth date on their 'Trip The Light Fantastic' mini-tour, their first UK outing in two years. The flashing coloured lights are in place. The throngs of adoring German fans have turned up. But nobody can hear frontman Andrew Eldritch.
A night of dark merriment is supposed to be at hand with black clad, white-faced figures leaving their cemeteries en masse for this shindig. Sona Fariq were a promising start to the night, storming through 'We Be On Fire', 'Drop The Bomb' and 'Do Not Return' in a set which mixed the hard-edge of Bad Brains and the vicious guitar of the Smashing Pumpkins with a reggae backbeat.
Surprisingly their sound is fine. But whether it's an act of sabotage, the sound man is asleep at the desk or God is having a bit of a giggle, no one can hear the vocals on opening song 'Anaconda' as a blond-haired Mr Eldritch, looking like a young, peroxide-mopped Lou Reed, ominously appears from a cloud of smoke.
Even standing right next to the speaker you can't hear what he's chanting until he screeches "She will...blow away" at the end of the song. The same problem also lessens the hypnotic effect of Sisters classics 'Dominion', 'Temple Of Love' and 'Flood II'. As people dance they have to follow the veteran drum machine Doktor Avalanche's beat instead of the lyrics. Not too difficult for most of the band's drunken, die-hard followers.
A third of the set though is new material and remains a mystery. Two vaguely audible songs are the techno-sounding 'War On Drugs' and the heavy and melodic 'We Are The Same, Suzanne' which is much in the same vein as more resonant Sisters numbers such as 'Driven Like The Snow' and 'When You Don't See Me'.
Having survived the dilapidated conditions of Glasgow's Barrowlands (except ironically for the sound system) and aggressive punters in Nottingham demanding their "twenty quids worth", London should have been the holy grail the Sisters were questing for.
Eldritch proved yet again a captivating frontman, as he chain smoked, randomly jabbered away in German and displayed the perfect body language for each song. Just a bloody shame you couldn't hear him.
