Sisters of Mercy

“Whoseywhatsit says it’s so foggy cuz he can’t play no instruments.” One faceless chick in the restroom said to another. “We seen ‘im tin years ago and it was the same way, all that smoke!”

Ugh!

Once upon a time, before there was Pandora to fulfill our every musical whim ... before there was Limewire and iPods ... before we could download whatever we wanted ...
when we wanted to hear some kick ass, driving music: we went to clubs! We went to Discoteca Morasol in Madrid, we went to Gloria and Flash somewhere in Germany (I wasn’t driving, so I don’t know where we were!) We went to hole in the wall clubs in France.
The music we liked wasn’t on the radio. Not even on the college and alternative stations, which were fine for our daytime listening pleasures, but if we wanted to hear the really cool, industrial stuff, we could only hear it in the clubs.
If we liked something especially, we would tramp around on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to seedy record stores where we had to watch where we stepped and hope the pot smell coming from the back rooms didn’t attach itself to our clothing. We would dig through stacks of vinyl hoping to find that rare recording of Anne Clark or Front 242.
And if we wanted to share our music, we made mix tapes!
The Sisters of Mercy quickly became a favorite that stayed with me over the years from the European clubs to Rock Island in Denver, Washington's on Thursday nights in Fort Collins, some strange place in Boulder ......
I bought their albums. I made tapes for my friends. My friends made tapes for me. And now, I listen to them on Pandora.
But first and last and always ... we went to the clubs to dance!
The Sisters of Mercy sounded gloomy and gothic while simultaneously being driving and sexy. It was always about dancing.
So, I loved seeing them from the balcony at 9:30 Club last night and I loved all the fog! I easily lost myself in the pulsing music being both compelling and nostalgic. The haze and strange lights from the stage creating shadows out of moving people backlit by the glow of the bar ... it was an absolute pleasure to slip back to my glory days for a couple of hours.
With the exception of the chick next to me channeling Molly Ringwald’s White Girl dance in the library and the idiots in the restroom, I felt like the twenty years I waited to see The Sisters of Mercy was well worth it!