33. The Cult
Roundhouse
31 October 2013
The Roundhouse is a venue that somehow manages to be both charming and completely useless at the same time. It’s the architectural equivalent of a drum solo, technically impressive, but frequently more trouble than it’s worth. With its circular design bouncing sound off the walls like a game of sonic pinball, you’d expect an aural nightmare. And yet, against all odds, it mostly holds together, like rock ‘n’ roll itself, really.
The venue squats awkwardly between in the no-man’s-land between pre-street-food-explosion Camden to the south and the bleakly adequate Chalk Farm to the north, it’s hardly a rock ‘n’ roll Valhalla. So, before The Cult’s anniversary gig for Electric, my friend and I find ourselves in the soon-to-be-extinct Belgo Noord, the kind of place that serves strong monk-brewed beer to distract you from the fact that your food is slowly being plated by a chef having a midlife crisis in a walk-in fridge. But we can’t complain, a short while after such culinary regret, we were treated to the single greatest boyfriend flex in recorded history.
A towering goth, six foot something, all leather and eyeliner, stood in front of us, looking like he’d just emerged from a crypt clutching his masters in English literature. His girlfriend whispered something to him, and he replied, without irony: “I am all apocalypse, all the time.” Honestly, we nearly had to be stretchered.
Barely able to make it to the Roundhouse, we arrive in time for the lights to dim and out strides Ian Astbury, part frontman, part spiritual guide, part lost Fraggle. He’s a glorious collage of rock archetypes: Steven Tyler’s hips, Jagger’s ego, Jim Morrison’s leather pants, and a voice that somehow lands somewhere between thunderclap and Muppet. Offstage, his banter has the charisma of a dentist reading parking restrictions. But onstage is where it happens.
The band launches into “Wild Flower” and suddenly, everything clicks. Astbury’s flailing, yelling and dancing with his trademark stamp. Billy Duffy’s Gretsch tone slices through the room like a heat-seeking riff missile. Duffy, stoic as ever, strikes his cowboy pose, guitar slung low as he windmills the chords, rockabilly style.
This is Electric-era Cult in full flow. Bombastic. Theatrical. Full-on denim gospel. Astbury howls “YEAH!” like he’s trying to wake the spirit of Jim Morrison from a nap, while feathers and dreamcatchers swing from the mic stand, like the set designer had raided a Glastonbury merch stall. Yes, it's a bit rich coming from a bloke born in Cheshire, but subtlety was never part of The Cult’s brand. This is maximalist mysticism, and they wear it like warpaint.
By the time they launch into the inevitable closer, “She Sells Sanctuary”, the Roundhouse is a frothing mess of raised fists, spilled beer, and grown men rediscovering the power of fringe jackets. It’s sweaty, it’s silly, it’s bloody glorious.
And it’s why we still come out for gigs like this. Because once in a while, amid the dreamcatchers and dodgy acoustics, rock still reminds us that it has some of that sacred fire left.