Siouxsie

The return of Siouxsie, after more than ten years away from the stage, is nothing short of thrilling news for all the fans of the Queen of the Night. Tickets sold out within minutes, and the single Italian date was sold-out in no time at all. For her part, she has no intention of giving the audience more than the bare minimum, with just one show at the beautiful Arcimboldi theatre in Milan – when she could certainly have played venues with a much larger capacity – delivering a set of little more than an hour, during which she first appears to the crowd with her back turned, hooded in a dazzling silver outfit. It takes her a while to turn around and show her face, but when she finally does, the audience's enthusiasm is genuine and borders on outright veneration.

The impression is not of being in the presence of a mere professional of international rock, but a true queen of the stage, one of the few women to emerge from the European punk and post-punk scene, more than a gothic icon, almost a mistress who dominates her audience as if they were a crowd of adoring slaves. And at a certain point, when some little slave shouts too loudly trying to invoke her, it only takes the mistress a moment to put everything back in its place by shouting "Shut up and listen!"

The Milan crowd watches and listens as if in a trance. It's the typical dark concert crowd: Joy Division, Bauhaus, Sisters Of Mercy t-shirts abound, and of course Siouxsie ones too; in many cases you get the feeling you've already seen these very same people a thousand times before at just as many gothic events, and surely that's the case. With such a vast back catalogue, the choice of songs is bound to please some and disappoint many others, especially in such a short set.

The setlist is essentially a greatest hits celebrating the most acclaimed album of the Banshees saga ("Ju-Ju", four tracks), but it also features a song by Creatures ("But Not Them"), three tracks from her only solo album "Mantaray", two covers, and as many classics from "Kaleidoscope", "Tinderbox" and "Superstition".

Susan's voice obviously isn't what it was thirty years ago, but it holds up well at sixty-five, still allowing her to dominate stage and audience like a true legend. The crowd worships her and she responds with the occasional smile and the occasional crack of the whip; like a true mistress, she repays her fans' love with carrot and stick, loving her audience in her own way, wanting to dominate and subdue them.

The emotion runs high on the great classics like "Night Shift", which opens the set, "Arabian Knights", "Spellbound" or "Face To Face", but today's voice seems better suited to the more recent songs from the album "Mantaray". Closing the show is instead a cover of Iggy Pop's "The Passenger", a moment of levity within the night at the Arcimboldi. In the end Siouxsie dashes off stage with barely a wave goodbye, perhaps irritated by the (alas) omnipresent phones or by the audience leaving their seats to crowd in front of the stage. Everyone thinks little time has passed and that she'll surely come back. She doesn't: the show is over, and Siouxsie, true goddess that she is, can't afford to give too much of herself to her audience. Which is exactly why they'll keep worshipping her.

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