Cult

The summer Festival of Piazzola sul Brenta has for some years now been an unmissable date with great live music in Veneto, set in the evocative surroundings of the Anfiteatro Camerini in the town near Padua that centuries ago was also the birthplace of the great artist Andrea Mantegna. This new edition, organized for the second time in partnership with Hydrogen, kicked off with the major presence of Joan Baez, the iconic singer-songwriter who headlined an event celebrating Peace Day with a moving run-through of classics both well-known and obscure, and continued with Billy Idol, Sting, Tiziano Ferro and Wolfmother (to name just a few), all clearly aimed at reaching an ever wider and more varied audience. July 13th was the turn of a historic band (Cult, led by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy), back on the attack after five years of recording silence with the solid "Choice Of Weapon".

"This is a rock'n'roll show!". And so, after five years of recording silence (broken only by two "capsules" - two EPs of unreleased material produced by Chris Goss - and by a sprawling four-CD reissue of the 1985 masterpiece "Love", performed in full on stage just two years ago for its twenty-fifth anniversary), Ian Astbury's unmistakable voice and Billy Duffy's guitar are back. British by birth and American by adoption, Cult have almost thirty years of history behind them, a run of important, influential and rarely predictable albums, recorded with producers of the caliber of Rick Rubin and Bob Rock - each one with its own character, its own identity. Many years have now passed since Billy used to chase after Patti Smith and the Sex Pistols at gigs, before spending entire evenings talking music with his friend Ian Astbury (who spent his teenage years in Canada), who instead worshipped David Bowie, Lou Reed and Jim Morrison: the energy and the drive to still write great rock music are still there, and the formula works precisely because it has never been tightly bound to the fads of the moment.

Two thousand fans turned up for the first Italian event (our guys would later also play the Velvet in Rimini and Carroponte in Sesto San Giovanni) celebrating the release of their new album "Choice Of Weapon", their most convincing record in many years: Astbury is very proud of it, it's not a record made simply as an excuse to tour again, and that's what keeps the show from being purely an exercise in nostalgia for times gone by. Right below the stage are the die-hard fans: one waves a vinyl copy of "Electric", many others wear T-shirts bought during the 2010 tour, others still recall the moment they discovered the band's music and wonder how the now fifty-something Ian will hold up on stage (the younger ones smile at the thought of his current "Ozzy Osbourne-style" belly and find a striking resemblance between Billy Duffy and a TV celebrity, Scottish chef Gordon Ramsay).

The Cult have racked up hit after hit in the United States and England (they'll play five dates, barring any last-minute surprises, alongside Mission and Killing Joke, with the grand finale on September 16 at Wembley Stadium in London), yet in Italy they've never managed to reach much beyond their die-hard following: according to some of those present, this has in the past always meant less energetic shows, colder than their performances back home, with Astbury rarely playing the showman, which took something away from the overall performance. Luckily, this time it wasn't like that.

The honor (and the burden) of opening the show fell to Gun, a Scottish outfit some will remember fondly but whose trail had gone cold for quite a few years: between the late Eighties and early Nineties, they scored hits on the international charts thanks to three pretty solid albums – "Swagger" above all. In Italy the band is known mainly for their excellent, high-energy cover of Cameo's "Word Up", which was in heavy rotation on MTV and Videomusic/Tmc2 and on our radio stations for an entire summer; then came a fourth album produced by Andrew Farriss of Inxs that failed to win over either the public or the critics, and the band took a long break, during which bassist Dante Gizzi, now also the frontman of Gun, formed El Presidente while the other members worked as session musicians for the likes of Joe Strummer, Robbie Williams and Bruce Dickinson. It's not easy to get back on your feet after fifteen years away, yet Gun have pulled it off with flying colors: the new album "Break The Silence" is anything but a bland rehash of what they did in the past, and the Glasgow boys prove it by playing three new songs live, including the supremely catchy title track which, with a bit of proper promotional push from the major radio networks, would have every chance of breaking through and keeping us company all season long. Gun weren't born yesterday, even if their current sound is a far cry from what they recorded in the past – not just because the singer has changed, but also because they're now in the hands of Dave Eringa (Idlewild, Manic Street Preachers), who has forged a sound perfectly in line with the British indie/alternative scene of the last decade, with a shrewd nod to the fresh, light style of Young The Giant.

The setlist obviously couldn't do without the famous cover of the Cameo classic that made them known to a wider audience: the crowd in Piazzola sul Brenta remembers it very well, singing the chorus and shouting along with Gizzi, "W-O-R-D UP!" "Thanks, everybody" – now it's time for the main show, and while the stage is being set up, to help pass the time the speakers play songs like David Bowie's "Breaking Glass" and "Boys Keep Swinging" and Roxy Music's "Street Life". Just enough time to strike up a conversation with a fan from Vicenza who's been following The Cult since the often-maligned "Ceremony", and then a roar greets the entrance of the five seasoned musicians.

It's good to see Ian Astbury back on stage, wearing a pair of dark glasses he won't take off until the final encores, his long hair tied back in a ponytail, a jacket with "Wilderness" clearly visible on it, and (something that frankly caught just about everyone off guard, given the less-than-cool weather...) a fur collar. For two reasons: first, because just a few days before the show the band had unfortunately been involved in a road accident (their tour bus, while traveling between Croatia and Slovenia, suddenly swerved and hit the guard rail), but luckily we found them all in pretty good spirits; and second, because it had seemed like The Cult wanted nothing more to do with recording new albums. Thankfully they had a change of heart, because it's the songs from "Choice Of Weapon" – alongside a handful of classics chosen from the albums closest in sound and spirit to the new record – that steal the show.

The singer's voice isn't what it used to be: time has made it deeper, more vulnerable and rougher around the edges, though there was no need to lower the key on the classic tracks. That much was clear right from the opening number, "Lil' Devil", originally featured on one of their best albums ("Electric", produced by Rick Rubin) and later included in the soundtrack of "The Rules Of Attraction", the film adaptation of the great Bret Easton Ellis's novel "Less Than Zero". Right after that comes a first taste of the new record, the opening track "Honey From A Knife": Ian happily reminds the crowd that "Choice Of Weapon" is out, and assures everyone that if they loved "Love", "Electric" and "Sonic Temple", this one will soon find its way into their hearts too. Even stripped of the meticulous studio polish applied by perfectionist producer Bob Rock, the song holds up live. Nobody expected to hear the great classic "Rain" so early, as the third song of the setlist, but it's more than enough to get the fans truly fired up – they end up singing the whole thing themselves, sparing Astbury's vocal cords some of the strain. Drummer John Tempesta and bassist Chris Wyse provide a breathtaking rhythm section for a roaring Ian and for Billy Duffy's Gretsch White Falcon, which churns out riffs for the entire show.

It's interesting to note how the tracks from "Love" and "Electric" blend seamlessly with the new songs. And indeed, from the post-punk/dark-wave beginnings of "Dreamtime" to the harder sounds of the early Nineties (when the band fought against the dominant Seattle grunge trend, the kind without riffs because "deep down those guys couldn't really play very well", and came out of it battered in 1994) right up to the present day, it's genuinely hard to find a Cult album that sounds exactly like the one before it (with the possible exception of "Ceremony" alone). That's why "Lucifer" sounds so good, sandwiched between "Rain" and "Nirvana": if "Honey From A Knife" pays tribute to the classic rock'n'roll of Chuck Berry, the second track from "Choice Of Weapon" mixes new wave echoes with veiled nods to the style of Jimi Hendrix. These songs are lessons in rock history, and yet they manage to sound remarkably fresh and current.

Italians love "drama", Ian Astbury is convinced of that as he introduces the only song pulled from the new album's bonus CD (the intense "Embers"), which had previously appeared on one of the two 2010 "capsules": there are, however, moments when the singer doesn't take himself too seriously, starting to interact with the crowd and crack jokes in English and in a shaky Italian (he must have found the news coverage of our former prime minister's "bunga bunga" scandal quite amusing too, since he brought it up more than once...). "The Wolf" also works well, while there are a few hiccups during "For The Animals", the lead single from "Choice Of Weapon": at one point Billy Duffy hands his guitar off to a roadie, throws down his pick and storms off looking annoyed while Tempesta launches into a drum solo and Mike Dimkich does what he can with his rhythm guitar until the end of the song. Only "Fire Woman" is chosen from "Sonic Temple", the album that reached the highest position on the American charts – in other words, we got to hear neither "Edie (Ciao Baby)" nor "Sweet Soul Sister" – and the same fate befalls 2001's "Between Good And Evil", from which only the single "Rise" is pulled. Obviously there was no way "She Sells Sanctuary" could be left out, still to this day The Cult's best-known song even among casual listeners, and dusted off not many years ago even by Keane for a B-side recorded during the "Under The Iron Sea" sessions.

"You can't destroy them, the beauty and the youth / You'll never beat them, you'll never hide the truth", Astbury sings with passion on the rock ballad "Life > Death", the standout track from "Choice Of Weapon", complete with an unforgettable instrumental coda. Two more encores close out the set, "Spiritwalker" (the only track from the debut "Dreamtime") and "Love Removal Machine", once again from "Electric".

While Ian Astbury came across as far less detached than fans who saw him in the Nineties had described, and although this was a rock'n'roll show with all the trimmings (no dragging moments, a stage set up with tasteful restraint, and thoroughly competent musicianship), there's still a slightly bitter aftertaste left by the small mishap with Duffy, who stayed intensely focused on his guitar but barely ever looked toward the crowd, and above all by the show's short length, just an hour and a quarter. And yet you head home satisfied, aware of having heard a band that still knows exactly what it's doing, and equally aware that the inspiration and drive to write new music haven't disappeared. The new material is solid, the songs are well written and perfectly consistent with the history and style that have always defined The Cult, who at this point in their career can afford not to worry about the charts and have absolutely no interest in currying favor with "spoiled" hipsters (Astbury was downright scandalized by the terrible score Lou Reed and Metallica's "Lulu" received on Pitchfork, though in recent interviews he's also shown himself to be very attentive to new talent and to what's happening in the music business today). And in the end, we're perfectly happy with them just as they are.

Photographs by Marco Peruzzo (http://www.marcoperuzzo.com/)

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