Psychedelic Furs

It was timewarp at the Forum when 80’s new wave electro popsters Psychedelic Furs played their greatest hits as well as their 1981 album ‘Talk Talk Talk’ in its entirety.
Despite the fact that Forum gigs usually lack sound brilliance (courtesy of the venue, not the bands), the Furs delivered a fantastic show that, somewhat unusually perhaps, was split in two halves. The band – still centred on brothers Richard (vocals) and Tim Butler (bass) – didn’t waste much time with nostalgic introductions and began with the energetic ‘Dumb Waiter’ in which Richard makes a reference to Bob Dylan’s lyrics with the line “Give me all your papers, ma”.

This was followed by the band’s catchy signature hit ‘Pretty In Pink’, a song that boasts Richard’s first real lyrical narrative, around which film director John Hughes based his own interpretation in the 1986 cult ‘brat pack’ movie of the same name – starring Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez.

Of course, this is the one song the crowd couldn’t wait to hear, so it came as somewhat of a surprise that the band’s greatest hit was performed right at the beginning of the set. Gravelly-voiced Richard Butler was in top form and if his pirouette-like moves and jerky dance steps are anything to go by, he has aged either very well or barely at all.
Tim and Richard were backed by Mars Williams on sax, Rich Good on guitar, Paul Garisto on drums and Amanda Kramer on keyboards. They all delivered what the audience expected to hear, though at times the stage shenanigans seemed a little too controlled. There was a good mix of old and young in the audience but of course, the majority consisted of original Psychedelic Furs fans.

Continuing with tracks like ‘I Wanna Sleep With You’, ‘No Tears’, ‘Mr. Jones’ and ‘Into You Like A Train’, the band’s repertoire effortlessly glided from more uplifting sounds (interspersed with a lot of sax) to moodier and darker ones that were emphasized by heavy guitar play. After ‘She Is Mine’ an interval followed, then the show went on with ‘Sister Europe’ and ‘Heartbeat’ with its distinctive sax and drum intro. The rather restrained and mellow sounding ‘Love My Way’ never was one my Furs favourites, though it sounded more energetic here. The same goes for ‘The Ghost In You’, a title that suggests a song by David Sylvian/Japan as opposed to Psychedelic Furs. Another of the band’s signature songs followed, namely ‘Heaven’ and the fans really went for it.

For the encore, the band played the fast ‘President Gas’ and the even faster ‘India’ (my personal favourite). To me, the two tracks really were the highlight of the evening, for Richard and band totally let lose and went wild on those numbers. No choreographed dance steps or anything, just real driving beat and aggressive guitar sound. All in all, a fantastic trip down memory lane performed by a band who sound as brilliant as ever and who thankfully don’t belong to those musicians who had better quit the biz by now.