Nearly 30 years after seeing her for the first time, tonight I saw Siouxsie in her first solo tour.

Owen and I made our way through the odd tunnel-land that is the Astoria 2 to the fairly wide auditorium. We stood through the support act The Violets with Gillian, a friend of Dawn who amazingly remembered me from about 6 years ago when we all saw Tom Tom Club in Camden.

The Violets... u-huh. Siouxsie was having sport methinks. I can't think of any other reason to have a band supporting her with a female singer who sings atonally while doing little bunny skips around the stage while looking glacially into the audience as the band sonically chop away behind her.
Seconds before Madame's entrance our view was obliterated by these fat B.O. smelling, beer-swilling bellowing fuckers who appeared from each side like the Raptors in JURASSIC PARK who then proceeded to do the pogo surge when she launched into ISRAEL - like, it's such an up-tempo number! We put up with being cannoned into by these twunts for the one song then moved back... just as I saw Gillian getting carried off with them. I hope she survived the gig to get back to Deal.

We then did the peripatetic thing, trying to find the spot in the venue for us finally ending up in the relatively empty left side bar of the first level watching through the viewing gallery windows across onto the stage. It was a great view although it was a bit of an odd experience having the sound from the stage piped into that bar but none of the crowd noise!

Siouxsie was excellent - she sounded in great voice and was suitably sniffy with her audience. By my reckoning she sang 7 songs from MANTARAY and they sounded wonderful live. I had wondered how these glitteringly dark and lush songs would transfer to a live setting but they shone: the bouncy ABOUT TO HAPPEN, the cinematic LOVELESS, the sweeping IF IT DOESN'T KILL YOU, the Salsa-fying SEA OF TRANQUILITY, the nervy ONE MILE BELOW, the swaggering HERE COMES THAT DAY and the anthemic INTO A SWAN. The set was filled out with classics such as DEAR PRUDENCE, SPELLBOUND, ARABIAN KNIGHTS and - swoon - HONG KONG GARDEN. Her swansong was indeed SWANSWAY - a slow version of INTO A SWAN which segued into The Doors' HELLO I LOVE YOU.

My only gripe was the lighting - the same as Boy George's Koko gig. All the lights shining into the audience with the occasional side light picking her out. Atmospheric maybe but shite.

Kinda kicking myself now I turned down Owen's offer of going to see her again at the Roundhouse.