As The Sisters of Mercy began to spread their wings beyond the confines of West Yorkshire after the first John Peel session and with the recording of the breakthrough Alice/Floorshow single complete, over the 1982/1983 academic year they played mostly in the two English major cities (London and Birmingham), with Manchester also featuring prominently on the gigography, but shows further south were few and far between.
The gigs at Swindon and Bournemouth in the spring of 1983
were notoriously poorly attended, but the band did pay two relatively
successful visits to the coastal county of Sussex during that time, the first
show being in Brighton in early October of 1982 as part of the support tour
with The Furs, who were promoting their own classic Forever Now album.
This handful of dates (Leeds, Manchester, York and Leicester were also visited)
was the first real “tour” which the band had undertaken, and as with other high
profile support slots earlier in 1982 (for example, with the Clash at Newcastle
City Hall or the ZigZag Club in London with The Birthday Party), gave the band
the chance to play in front of the fans of already established acts on the
alternative scene.
This was especially true of the Brighton gig, for reasons
which only became apparent after a relatively recent post on a Brighton musical
memories Facebook page. Indeed, until the posting there by David McL of this
picture of a flyer for the gig:
little was known about the show, other than the name of the
venue, Sherrys, styled here as Sherrys Lazer Discotheque, to highlight the
venue’s recent investment in the then must-have latest dancefloor enhancement
(effectively a green lazer light which could be focussed on a mirror ball and
other light refracting devices to create shafts of light, a technique
well-known to fans of the Sisters’ stage show over the years).
Sherry’s (to give the venue its original name) was a well-known
Brighton dance hall which had opened at the end of the first World War, and was
something of a rite of passage for young people in the bohemian Sussex resort.
Andrew Eldritch would have been pleased to hear that it even gets a mention in
English writer Graham Greene’s seminal work Brighton Rock (first
published in 1938), and after being restyled as a disco in 1969 (after a twenty-year
stint as a roller rink and amusement arcade) and seemingly losing its
apostrophe in the process, by the early 1980’s it was hosting bands on a Monday
evening as part of a regular Futurist night, featuring shows by some of the
coolest acts on the scene such as Fad Gadget, Heaven 17 and, erm, * checks
notes * Blue Rondo a la Turk.
The night of the Sisters/Furs gig was a memorable one for local
fans of post-punk music in West Sussex with The Damned (promoting their Strawberries
album with punk band Charge – featuring their memorably-monickered singer Stu P.
Didiot - as support act) also playing that evening at the Top Rank club, just
across West Street in Brighton from Sherry’s! The enterprising local promoters
of the Sisters gig (Kelitech and Dave Steward) clearly decided to stagger their
start time in order to attract Damned fans, according to those posting on the
Brighton FB page in response to the flyer. David McL, the curator of the page
and who posted the gig advert, commented “The Sisters of Mercy as support and it
started straight after The Damned had played over the road at Top Rank, so I saw
both gigs!” to which another fan (Doug G) replied “Indeed, two gigs in one
night and memorable for me as the gig that got me hooked on the Sisters of
Mercy and led to me following them about the country.” Any doubts about whether
The Sisters played that night were dispelled by a third poster, Dean D, who
stated “I went to this gig myself, definitely the Sisters supporting...great
night!”. A fourth, later commenter (Robin T) confirmed these basic facts: “The
Sherry’s gig was the same night as the Damned at the Top Rank, so we did the
Damned first than all headed over the road to the Furs with the Sisters of
Mercy as the support act.” When the flyer was later reposted, another group
member commented “I was at this gig. I remember The Sisters of Mercy very well.
The Furs arrived late and wanted to soundcheck, so we had to move away from the
stage. Microphone and bass cut out during their set.”
Sadly little else has surfaced from the Sisters’ performance
– no photos, or audio for example (although there is one picture of Richard Butler,
the singer of the Furs, and even one of the DJ at the club that night!) – and
the venue continued under a variety of names (from The Pink Coconut to its
final incarnation as Hedkandi) until its demolition in 2021, as reported by local newspaper the Argus. The Sisters would go on to headline at the Top Rank
themselves, both on the Black October and Tune In, Turn On, Burn Out tours in
October 1984 and April 1985 (Gary Marx’s last gig) respectively.
The following year, The Sisters made a return to Sussex,
being booked to play at The Crypt venue in Hastings in East Sussex, another
well-loved local club which, I am pleased to report, is still going strong
today, unlike the majority of the venues which the band visited nearly four
decades ago. The gig is usually listed as having taken place on Wednesday 16th
March, as this was the date that was read out by David “Kid” Jensen when
playing the band’s BBC Radio One session (recently released on CD and vinyl), amongst
the list of the band’s then-forthcoming shows.
Since then, despite extensive searches, and appeals on a
Hastings music forum and on Phil Verne’s seminal The Sisters of Mercy 1980-1985 Facebook fan page, no further information about whether the gig had actually
taken place had surfaced, except for a photo of some graffiti in the band room
at The Crypt, which read “The Sisters of Mercy played here ‘83”, under which
some wag had added “+ ‘69” a reference to the Stooges cover.
Last year, however, a flyer advertising gigs in March 1983
at Rumours club (as The Crypt was temporarily renamed in the early 1980’s) was
posted on a Hastings music memories Facebook page, with not only a different
date but also featuring the name of the support band, The Dicemen. The new date, Friday
18th March, seemed most likely to be more accurate than the
previously circulated one, as the venue’s other gigs also took place at
weekends, and The Sisters tended to play most of their own shows at that time
on a Friday or Saturday night.
Under the FB post containing the flyer were a series of
comments, with Myles D stating “I was at The Sisters of Mercy gig” and James J
saying that “the 18th was a great night.” Even better, Richard J B
commented, “That was a highlight, supporting The Sisters of Mercy. My favourite
band at the time!”, clearly implying that he was a member of the support band,
The Dicemen. A quick google confirmed that there was indeed a member of the
band with that name, so I contacted him directly and asked him if he had any
memories to share with this blog.
I was delighted when he confirmed that he had indeed been in
The Dicemen and would be happy to talk about The Sisters gig at Rumours, which
he remembered very well, despite it taking place over 39 years ago! After
confirming the date as the 18th March 1983 by double-checking in a contemporary
diary – but “the poster wouldn’t have been wrong” – Richard informed me that not
only did he perform at the gig, but that he was also involved in the decision-making
process which resulted in The Sisters being engaged to play the venue in the
first place: “I remember the booking of the gig. We had already seen the
Sisters in London, at the Klub Foot I think, and I had Alice on 7”. They
were my favourite band of the moment. [My band] The Dicemen had a support
residency at The Crypt and, as we were so young, the guy who booked the bands
used to ask our opinion on who he should get. When he asked us whether he
should get a band I don’t remember or The Sisters of Mercy, we jumped for joy!”
Asked about what he remembered about the actual gig, again Richard’s memory was
clear: “I remember the Sisters as being tired, as they had just travelled all
the way from Leeds, having played a gig the night before I think.” According to
the band’s gigography, there was no gig in Yorkshire the night before (and I
would have been there if there had been one!), although for a while it was
thought that they were a late addition to the Sex Gang Children/Play Dead bill
at the Brixton Ace on Friday 17th March, because of a recording
(later proven to be of a different gig) which circulated amongst collectors
with that date and venue attribution. A mystery to resolve another day …
In terms of the actual show, Richard added “The Sisters
played a great gig, and it was a highlight of my career to grace the same
stage!”. Wondering about the size of the crowd, given the famously low
attendances at Swindon and Bournemouth, I asked Richard if he could remember
how well-attended the show was. “I think that there were more people than usual
that night, but there was a low threshold for The Crypt those days!” he told
me.
In addition to those enticed to the show by the presence of
the Sisters and their growing fame, The Dicemen were a local attraction in
their own right, and as well as featuring on a website about musical memories
in that part of Sussex, also have their own page on Discogs, courtesy of their
only release, the Shadows EP which was also released in 1983. Did they
come close to making it big, I wondered? “The Shadows EP got us a
distribution deal with Rough Trade and some radio plays in the South-East,”
Richard told me, “but in those days it was hard to tell...” Along with fellow
Diceman Nick B, Richard went on to form a second band, Play for Today, some of whose
music he has uploaded to YouTube in the recent past. With The Cure also hailing
from the county of Sussex, I surmised that Richard must have also been a fan of
Robert Smith’s ensemble (whose song Play For Today featured on the first
of their gothic trio of albums, Seventeen Seconds). “Yes, I am very much
a fan of The Cure, the darker side anyway!” he told me, before filling me in on
his projects since then. “I'm still involved in music using computers, but the
last proper band I was in was Mood For Tuesday around 1986.” The latter band
had a track featured on a 1987 compilation of indie bands, copies of which now sell for over £30 on Discogs.
As with the Brighton gig, no audio or video evidence exists of
the Sisters’ performance in the historic town of Hastings (non-UK readers may
not be aware that the decisive battle of the Norman invasion of England occurred just outside the town in the year 1066 and remains its main claim to fame), but the recent discovery
of not only flyers for both shows, but more crucially, the detailed memories of
those who attended the gigs, means that both concerts can now be confirmed in
the band’s official gigography, albeit with an amended date for the Hastings show.
My thanks for this post are due to all those who have
contributed their memories to local Facebook sites chronicling the concert
history of their areas, and in particular to David McL for posting
the artefact from the Furs gig, and especially to Richard J B for his
contributions regarding the Hastings gig. Anyone with an interest in Sisters’
gigs and history of that era is warmly invited to join the twelve thousand
members of The Sisters of Mercy 1980-1985 unofficial Facebook fan page.
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