This is not for the casual fan. There’s no Lil’ Devil or Wildflower from Electric – the swaggering, riff-packed rock monster of an album that broke The Cult worldwide and saw Guns N’ Roses opening up for them on their first big North American tour. There’s no Fire Woman or Edie (Ciao Baby) and there’s certainly nothing from last year’s rather splendid Under the Midnight Sun. But if you’ve ever uttered those immortal words, ‘I prefer their earlier stuff’? This might just be the place for you.
It’s 40 years since Bradford’s finest post-punk, proto-goth band Southern Death Cult imploded and singer Ian Astbury teamed up with former Theatre Of Hate guitarist Billy Duffy to form a new act called Death Cult. They existed under that name for less than a year before morphing into The Cult early in 1984. Tonight is a celebration of that short-lived Death Cult era, with a couple of tendrils reaching back to the Southern Death Cult Roots and a few more questing forward to the beginning of The Cult.
