Peter Murphy, former lead singer of Bauhaus and one of the pioneering founders of Goth, swaggered onto the stage Tuesday night at The House of Blues in Chicago-- a legend who cam off like he still had something to prove.
He really doesn't have anything to prove, but he continued the strut and swagger all through the 90-minute set. Unfortunately, if he was trying to prove something, he only partly succeeded.
It wasn't for lack of passion -- Peter Murphy's voice is as good as it ever was, maybe even better. It wasn't for lack of solid muscianship by his band. The problem was, the show was frequently bogged down by obscure tunes and way, WAY too many cover songs. Early and midway through the show, highlights included classics such as "Time Has Nothing to Do With It," "Disappearing" and "I'll Fall With Your Knife." The crowd was patient and respectful as Murphy did a pretty good version of John Lennon's "Instant Karma", got lost in ecstacy when he absolutely tore through a brilliant cover of Joy Division's "Transmission" , and remained polite even when he slogged through a cover of Roxy Music's stupidest song, "In Every Dream Home a Heartache".
These covers were interspersed with a few too many obscure songs, overall having the effect of deadening the momentum of the evening. The show really came to life later in the set, when Murphy kicked into blistering renditions of the Bauhaus classics "Bela Lugosi's Dead", "The Passion of Lovers", "She's In Parties" and "Burning From the Inside."
As the final encore seemed imminent, the expectation was for Murphy to really put an exclamation point on the momentum he created with the run of Bauhaus hits, by perhaps stomping through a couple of his biggest solo classics, like "All Night Long" or "Cuts You Up," or maybe another Bauhaus classic or two. Instead, he closed out the night onstage alone, doing a cover of "Space Oddity" by his biggest influence, David Bowie. To end the night with a song so closely defined with another artist was somewhat anticlimatic. There's really no reason for an artist who's been around 30 years, who has the catalog as deep as Murphy's, to end his show with another artist's song.
And besides that, an artist who's been around 30 years really has no excuse for not being able to craft a 90-minute set list that absolutely blows people's minds from start to finish. When you go see a legend, you expect it. Peter Murphy delivered the goods, but only in parts.
So the show gets an A for the passion and musicianship that Murphy puts into every song, whether his or another's, and another A for unforgettable renditions of some of his solo classics and Bauhaus classics too. But too many sluggish moments brought about by the overabundance of obscure and cover tunes only rate a C, bringing this night to an overall grade of B, with a rating of three out of five stars.
