Friday, June 26, 1998
San Francisco
Maritime Hall

by Paul Valdez

26 June 1998 - A night in review...

The Maritime Hall was eager for The Creatures. A foggy San Francisco night blanketed and cooled all patience of the multitude that came to gather to witness such a special performance. The set was no comparison to that of  the Boomerang Tour of '90. It should be kept seperate. It seemed that Sioux and Budgie were simply having fun. Being in such intimate settings made the whole performance very magical...especially when Sioux sang to all,"ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?" X 4 in very signature Sioux wail via 'Take Mine'. Old favorties included 'Miss The Girl' and 'Thumb' in a revered 90's style and 'Pluto Drive' climaxed into its own "plutonium fate"...A  crowd pleaser for all.

The Siouxsie, Budgie, Cale line up was such a treat. It seemed like they were all having a good time playing new  (and familiar) material alike. How deserving of Sioux/Budgie to share the stage with one of the most incredible, indelible and sometimes indescribable person on earth...Mr. Cale. I felt honored to be 'crushed' in the front center stage to embrace this show. Thanks Siouxsie, Budgie and John for another precious moment created!!!

by David Hamilton Gray

Concert Review

The Hall

The stage was in a big, boxlike room, with a bar all the way at the back and a smaller one to the right side. At the two side walls were huge video screens which had funky psychedelic color swirls blended with random video footage and weird zoom and fade effects. During the concert, two (at least) camera operators were down at the stage taking footage, which was then mixed up to the video screens, along with overlays of an operation (disturbingly graphic), village scenery, and other stuff. Cool and strange. Over the front of the stage, they had a 1960's style squishy-bubble projector running

Outfits

Cale was in a dark grey pinstripe double-breasted suit with no shirt. Budgie was in the same outfit as Palookaville: tight, large-rope fishnet shirt; dark green kilt with tights; short blond hair. Siouxsie had on wonderfully shiny PVC pants and matching open coat with red buttons; a silver large-chain belt; pearl drop earrings; a link necklace with black stones; and a tight fillagree-patterned PVC or textured lycra shirt, with one button at the top and opal-shaped drop towards the bust. She looked fantastic, I don't care if she's 41!

The Mood

The crowd was very energetic, although the TWO HOUR DELAY from scheduled start time wasn't too kind on the bands' part. Once the show started, though, the energy jumped up, especially when Siouxsie was on the stage. Cale, Siouxsie, and Budgie all seemed in very good moods. When Siouxsie and Cale sang together tonight, they seemed to work well with each other and had fun; at Palookaville, there seemed to have been some tension.

The Concert

The concert opened with Cale, who was in a higher-energy mood tonight. Siouxsie came on during Hedda, with all the presence one could hope for. She growled out But Not Them in a strong, unwavering voice. In fact, her voice was great during the whole night, especially on songs like Take Mine, where she'd scream out. In the first part she did two old favorites, Miss the Girl and, the one that really got the crowd going, Pluto Drive. Budgie was having fun the whole time; I'd never seen someone so intently watching both the singers and the audience, all while having fun himself. Cale then came back on stage to do some kind of duet which I've never heard, followed by another session by Cale. The front of the audience was absolutely packed during the second Creatures set (with me struggling to get the setlist while jumping around!) The energy just kept rising as she sang B-side ourselves and Exterminating Angel. Siouxsie played drums herself on a couple of songs during the concert. For the first of THREE encores, Siouxsie came back out with a glittering silver cowgirl hat and sang a deep and growling version of Thumb. The second encore had the duet Murdering Mouth and a old classic, Gun. The third encore was the best, with Siouxsie doing a version of Venus in Furs that should be a video all on its own; she made that song her song. At the end of the concert, she threw out flowers at the audience.

Sniplets

Some Siouxsie quotes. Budgie played guitar on B-side ourselves; he had a bit of trouble with the strap for a moment, to which Siouxsie quipped "We have to wait while my husband straps it on." Later, during one of the encores, one of the stage helpers was fumbling with the mics at center stage; I guess one was better than the other. She looked down at him as he was on the ground and said "Just what do you plan to do with that?" to which he could only give a dumb look. One of the audience members asked Siouxsie to go over to the side of the stage, to which she replied, "Whenever someone asks me to come here, I don't" and she moved away.

One last aside

At the Palookaville concert, Siouxsie stayed after and shook hands and signed autographs for those who stuck it out and waited. She was VERY friendly to talk to, particularly if you looked like you weren't going to pounce on her. My roommate and I told her we would be at one SF concert and the Sacramento concert, to which she said "Goodness, you'll be sick of us by then." Tonight, at the start of the concert, we could swear she stared straight at us and sang when she recognized us; later, we waved at her, and she gave us an eye motion that seemed to say "hi guys, I remember." Just shows how cool she is.

That's enough babble. Now go try to see them!

by David Gill

Creatures Creep Through A Night Of Seductive Rock

Sexy Siouxsie Sioux leads the band and audience through a set of old and new material.

SonicNet's David Gill reports:

SAN FRANCISCO -- When she's onstage, Siouxsie Sioux performs with a powerful sexual energy.

More than her sultry music, more than her skin-tight leather body suit, more than her seductive tone of voice, she radiates a confidence and self assurance that can seduce crowds.

Take, for example, her performance at the Maritime Hall here Friday with her side band the Creatures, a show that included ex-Velvet Underground rocker John Cale as the opening act. Sioux slinked and slithered around the stage like a cat prowling for some food.

Her voice seemed to cry out for attention, a wanton wail that seemed even more meaningful than the words she was trying to communicate.

"When she sang 'Venus in Furs' ... What a babe!" is all that 23-year-old concert-goer Meri Brin had to say about it.

And like a true vixen, Sioux rarely travels alone. Audience members got a special treat when she shared the stage with Cale for a truly gothic extravaganza. The large venue was packed and the crowd was noticeably on high alert when Cale appeared onstage. The musician started things off by setting the mood of the evening.

Dressed in black, he tapped at his keyboard, delivering an ominous, if not downright depressing poetry while footage of human surgery appeared on the huge screens flanking the stage.

Cale's deep voice and stern delivery proved a strange juxtaposition against what was to come.

After Cale had run through five of his songs, Siouxsie Sioux, clad in shiny black leather, appeared onstage, as if out of a dark alleyway. The crowd exploded with applause and whistles. The sexy singer strutted up to the microphone and said simply and softly, "The beautiful people are out tonight."

Perhaps she was referring to the crowd that, for the most part, resembled extras from "Interview With The Vampire." Mostly, they were here to see the gothic rocker and her band and get an earful of their latest sound. And much to their surprise, the performance featured a number of new songs, including, "Prettiest Thing" -- a seductive number featuring the band's patented Caribbean flavor -- "Take Mine," the apocalyptic "Exterminating Angel" and the standout "Turn It On."

The band, currently in the midst of a three-month tour that includes stops in London, Mexico City, New York and Chicago, is set to release a new, yet-to-be-titled album sometime in 1999, according to its management.

Since disbanding Siouxsie and the Banshees, the band that first garnered Sioux musical acclaim, the singer has focused her efforts on the Creatures, a band that she started with percussionist-husband Budgie in 1981. The band has released only one full-length LP, 1989's Boomerang, but has toured extensively, including playing on the Lollapalooza summer tour festival in 1991.

And it shows. After her husband, Budgie, who seems to exude rhythm from every pore, began to pound out a deep, pulsing rhythm on the drums, Siouxsie began to sing.

Let it be said that there are few voices as recognizable as Sioux's, and at age 40, she has lost nothing of her range or unique cadence. In fact, she seems to have grown into her voice, perfected the use of it to the point where it has become a lethal musical weapon. Whether she was belting out a low note or screeching out high, cat-like calls, her voice cried out in beautiful song, filling the huge theater, making every nuance audible to the listener.

Even if the crowd didn't know all the words to the new material yet, fans grooved to the sounds as if to old favorites. They screamed passionately for Sioux to hear them. Some handed her flowers. Some simply stood in awe, hypnotized by her very presence.

When the band got to the night's pivotal number, "Turn It On," featuring a thick, bass-laden beat, a beautiful wall of sound emanating from the guitar player's amp, Sioux delivered a blistering chorus -- "Play the game where I play the king/ Everything to risk, everything to save/ I change what I can/ Accept what I can't/ Cause I've got the power ... Chameleon/ Turn it on/ Feel the power ... unpredictable/ Feel the power ... untamable/ Turn it on."

It was a sound that soothed as well as stirred emotions.

After Sioux had brought the audience to a fever pitch with "Pluto Drive," from the Creatures' 1989 record, Boomerang, Cale re-emerged onstage, strapped on a guitar and proceeded to run through some faster rock songs, looking perhaps to take over where Sioux left off.

But the crowd seemed disinterested in Cale's electric set. Fans wanted Sioux and all her freaky feline fetishes to return to the stage.

Before too long, their wish came true.

The seductress returned to perform "Murdering Mouth" as a duet with Cale. After switching instruments from acoustic guitar to bongos to his drumset, percussionist Budgie stepped up to the huge bass drum aside the stage and the band delivered the highlight of the evening during the third encore -- a rendition of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs."

Mesmerized by the droning tune, which Sioux sang in her patented come-hither tone, the crowd seemed wasted, breathless, unable to speak.

Sioux had done her job.

She had given them what they wanted -- her love.