The Cult -
New York City
(Live At The Fillmore New York At Irving
Plaza)
Performance
Production
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The Cult -
New York City
Performance
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I was beginning to wonder whether The Cult would ever surface again after frontman Ian Astbury went off to play Jim Morrison in The Doors, I mean The Doors of the 21st Century, make that Riders on the Storm, soon after releasing and touring behind their last album, 2001's heavy duty Beyond Good And Evil. In 2006, the Cult reunited for a world tour that went on for nearly the entire year, and then in February of 2007, Astbury quit Riders on the Storm to focus exclusively on The Cult. That resulted in a new album, Born Into This, and this new concert DVD, which were both released in October of this year. The Cult: New York City, if you go by the title on the cover of the DVD, or Live At The Fillmore New York At Irving Plaza, November 13th, 2006, if you go by the title on the side of the DVD case, was recorded during the band's 2006 world tour, at the place and time indicated by that longer title - although the ending credits say it was recorded on November 11th. It was the 13th, I checked the Fillmore website. I'll just refer to the DVD as New York City, to make things easy. Joining founding members Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy onstage for this tour were Mike Dimkich on rhythm guitar and Chris Wyse on bass guitar, who have both worked with the band since the 2001 album and tour, and drummer John Tempesta, who is best know for his work with Rob Zombie. I was quite pumped when I first heard about this new concert DVD, because I have been anxiously awaiting a video that would finally capture the power and intensity of a good live Cult show. Their previous effort, 2002's Live Cult: Music Without Fear, did not quite live up to the awesome show I attended from that same tour. Unfortunately, you get pretty similar results with this new DVD. Neither of them captures one of the band's better performances. Maybe they just don't like being filmed. Another one of the main problems with both DVD's, and especially with this one, is with the audio mix. New York City is one of the most cheaply produced concert DVDs I have come across - more about that later - and only a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio track is provided. There is no stereo track for those of you without a surround setup, or who simply prefer a stereo mix. Any Cult fan knows that Billy Duffy's powerhouse guitar is the dominant force throughout each of the band's albums and during their live shows. This is especially true with the Electric album, which they usually emphasize during most concerts, and it was featured heavily this night. So why did they bury his guitar way down in the mix on this live concert DVD? It would be like giving Angus a weak guitar mix on an AC/DC video. Blasphemy! To make matters worse, it sounds like Mike Dimkich was not even plugged in. I defy you to hear one of his guitar chords. There was no such problem with Ian's mix though. His vocals were cranked beyond belief through the center channel. Wait a minute, that was a problem, because his singing was, and I'll be generous, OFF this night. He performs the first four songs of the concert wearing a giant fur hat, like the one he is wearing on the Electric album cover, and by the end of the second song he was already sweating profusely and sounding completely out of breath. That's not a good formula for a good vocal performance. The setlist weighed heavily on 1985's Rain album, and 1987's Electric album, with each one providing five songs. Surprisingly, their last album Beyond Good And Evil only received one play with "Rise", and, disappointingly, their two often panned 90's albums, Ceremony and The Cult only shared one song between them, "Wonderland", and it's not even one of the better ones. I'm not quite sure why they always dis those two albums, because, far from being their best, they each have some killer tracks like "Wild Hearted Son", "White", and "Star", to name a few, that I'd love to hear. My biggest disappointment of the night was the weak acoustic rendition of "Edie", which featured only Billy on acoustic guitar and Ian singing. It had the same effect as if Page and Plant did "Stairway" on acoustic and stopped before the drums come in. This is one epic power ballad that should never be neutered as such. Ian's butchering of "Fire Woman" made this once mighty song almost painful to sit through as well. The "FYERRRRRRRRRERRRRERRERRERR" chorus would have been relegated to a soggy "fire", were it not for Wyse and Duffy carrying it somewhat. The crowd remained wildly enthusiastic throughout the show, however, and this eventually rubbed off on the band. By the 12th song of the set, "Peace Dog", they were finally starting to hit their stride and this continued on through the first set closer, "Love Removal Machine". Everyone was firing on all cylinders for this one, easily making it the show highlight. The encore set featured two more Love album cuts, "Nirvana" and "She Sells Sanctuary". These older Cult songs still hold up amazingly well live thanks to the heavier guitar treatment they get in concert. If only the rest of the set had been this good. New York City comes packaged in a very stark looking case, with no booklet, and a DVD adorned only with "CULT" in plain black letters. The disk menu only contains "Play" and "Track" options, with no audio selections, and zero special features. I could really care less about fancy DVD packaging, as long as the video inside delivers the goods, but it was disappointing to see such little effort put into this release. Perhaps the worst thing of all about this DVD was the claustrophobic camera direction, which suffered from nauseatingly quick camera angle changes, unsteady shots, and black and white cuts just for the sake of using black and white. The picture itself looked very good when you could actually focus in on it. Well, I'm still waiting for the ultimate Cult concert DVD. I've heard many of the shows during the band's current tour in support of Born Into This have been quite good, so hopefully someone has had the tape rolling. Let's do it right this time. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - November 2007 |
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Set List |
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Running Time: 84 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - October 2007 |