Theatre of Hat - Leicester, December 1982

It’s been a while since we added a long-forgotten date to the known Sisters gigography from the 1981-1985 era, so I was very excited when long-term collector Bruno Bossier informed me last year about a poster which he had tracked down, for a gig featuring a four band line-up with The Sisters of Mercy listed to play. The gig in question was due to have taken place at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall on Friday 10^th December 1982, with post-punk legends Spear of Destiny playing one of their first-ever headlining dates following their line-up and name change (from Theatre of Hate).

This would have been a very quick return to Leicester by TSOM, just two months after playing at the town’s Polytechnic on their support tour with Psychedelic Furs. The poster itself, which Bruno was hoping to purchase at the time, was very similar in style (and indeed line-up) to a gig TSOM played in London two weeks later that December in London, also promoted by Head Music, so it seemed entirely plausible.

De Montfort Hall on Leicester’s University Street is entirely unconnected with the modern De Montfort University, which confusingly is the rebranded name of Leicester Polytechnic, mentioned above. Both are named after Simon De Montfort, a thirteeth century Earl of Leicester responsible for one of Britain’s first attempts at representative government, and one of the city’s most famous sons. De Montfort Hall was (and continues to be) a major concert venue in the English East Midlands, and was at that time a regular stop-off for established bands touring the UK, so this would have been one of the largest provincial venues the band would have played up to this point. The 2000 capacity hall was originally built in 1913, but like many other civic halls its comfortable and cavernous interior remained popular with rock as well as classical musicians until the advent of the more modern arenas from the mid-80’s onwards.

(picture from Wikipedia)

However, my contacts in the Leicester area had no memories of such a concert having taken place, but one of them Ali H, who had helped me with the research for the post for this blog on the Poly gig, went to the trouble of contacting Kirk Brandon, frontman of both Spear of Destiny and Theatre of Hate, to see if he could be of any assistance. Unfortunately, he too was unsure of whether the gig had taken place, although he did recall The Sisters supporting his band around that time (presumably the London gig). Incidentally, Kirk continues to gig (and record) successfully with both Spear of Destiny and Theatre of Hate, and this blog post is timed to coincide with Theatre of Hate's most recent live return to Leicester this very evening (1st August 2018).

Despite requests in Leicester music FB groups, there seemed to be no further news on this potential addition to the TSOM gigography until earlier this year when Bruno (who had originally discovered the poster) decided to contact the venue directly to see if they had any record of the gig in their archive. They were able to confirm that the gig was in fact scheduled but then cancelled, which would explain both the poster’s original existence and the fact that local fans had no recall of the gig having taken place, and so fittingly despite all of those who had become involved in the fruitless search for information about this potential gig, it was Bruno himself who both started and solved this particular Sisters Mystery. With legendary post-punk band UK Decay also on the bill, this line-up would have been one of the most spectacular events of the genre to have taken place, and for the princely sum of just £3.50 a ticket, but the Luton band did at least support Spear at the following evening's gig in St Albans according to their website.

The list of cancelled TSOM gigs from the early 1980’s is a relatively short one, including dates planned for the autumn of 1983 in the UK (prior to Ben Gunn’s departure) and a Paris date (issues with the promoter), but thanks to Bruno’s efforts, another concert can be added to the "cancelled" section of the gigography. Another friend of this blog, Rob C, unearthed the following announcement for the abortive Spear of Destiny tour, and it is of course possible that the Sisters were also booked for other dates at the larger venues on the list, as they were for the final night at the London Kilburn Ballroom.

My thanks for this post are clearly largely due to Bruno, but also to Ali H, Kirk Brandon, and all those (including Rob C) who helpfully became involved on discussion on this issue in Phil Verne’s ever-intriguing and highly-recommended The Sisters of Mercy 1980- 1985 Facebook group on which recent posts have including a snippet of the rare video referred to in the post on the Gothenburg 1985 gig, and information about the major fire which will sadly lead to demolition of the venue of the famous Glasgow Night Moves gig of April 1983, another gig which has previously featured in this blog.