Roy Jurgens on January 17th, 2019

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It’s not often you get to see an artist credited with inventing a genre, but that is exactly what 1,700 punters clad in coal black braved the rain for on Wednesday night at the Grove of Anaheim. It’s been almost 40 years since the album “In the Flat Field” made its debut on the legendary 4AD label, out of the cold midlands town of Northampton, England, from where the band named Bauhaus (after the German art movement) hailed.

And what better way to celebrate that anniversary than to get all the lads together and tour the world? Well, half the lads … as only singer Peter Murphy and bassist David J were making the rounds this time. The jagged moodiness that created the sonic maelstrom that would be termed as “Goth” often found its way into the band’s interpersonal relationships. Since their inception in 1978, incessant squabbling has kept Bauhaus apart from being a functioning unit for 30 of those years. Following the first breakup in 1983, the band’s individual members all enjoyed varying degrees of success– Murphy as a solo artist; David J as a solo artist as well as stints with Jazz Butcher and, alongside original Bauhaus members Kevin Haskins (his brother) and Daniel Ash, in Love & Rockets. Ash and Haskins formed Tones on Tail post-Bauhaus and currently record and tour as Poptone. The original members did reform for the “Resurrection” tour in 1998, and 2005 saw them tour and record until old poisons resurfaced, forcing the band to disband in 2008. 

Murphy, 61, sporting a wisp of a goatee, has aged prettily, and given his penchant for sin and menace, it hasn’t affected his performance. His command of the stage was as feral as ever. Age has not softened this man. His baritone is as smooth and deep, theatrical, bewitching and mesmerizing, part of his allure is the knowledge that at any given moment his fire could spill offstage, as it did during an embarrassing episode in Stockholm in December. David J’s adult presence was distant and wry, but upon further inspection, one can tell he’s enjoying himself immensely. Standing in on guitar for Ash was the most able Mark Gemini Thwaite (Peter Murphy solo, Mission UK, Tricky, MGT), while behind the drum kit sat longtime session pro Mark Slutsky. Goth purists (perhaps the worst kind of purists) may turn up their noses at the hired guns, but truth be told, both more than held their own. Technically, Thwaite is a far superior guitarist to the influential Ash and matched his unique slash and burn note for note. However, Ash’s glittery persona was missed, as he provides a glamorous foil to Murphy’s viciousness. Slutsky is a Swiss timepiece.

David J’s crunching opening fuzz bass lines of “Double Dare” set the tone of what would be an evening of smirking nostalgia for a crowd largely north of 40, with a few Hot Topic kids scattered throughout. Murphy, flamboyant in black sequins, was in fierce voice, bellowing “I dare you to be proud, to dare to shout aloud.” From there they roared into “In the Flat Field,” where the amorous crowd was already fully engaged in the theater. It could be argued that “In the Flat Field” was consequential not only in terms of Goth, but also in terms of post-punk. Largely derided as tuneless and confusing by the ever petulant British music press, the album wasn’t so much a collection of conventional songs as it was an experiment in angles of sound, punctuated with staccato polyrhythms, and betrothed to David Bowie’s stardust, Marc Bolan’s feather boa and Weimar Berlin. The band’s rendition of “Stigmata Martyr” was exceptional, a perfect representation of everything Bauhaus: religious imagery, crunching harmonics, descending bass lines and odd meter. The pièce de résistance, of course, was “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” Goth’s very own “Stairway to Heaven,” an atonal nine-minute epic swirl of bats and belfries. “She’s in Parties” closed out the initial set, but not a soul ventured towards the doors. They were treated to an encore of “A Passion of Lovers” and three defining covers, their complete reinterpretation of T. Rex’s “Telegram Sam,” a crystalline version of “Ziggy Stardust” and a singer’s song, Dead Can Dance’s “Severance.”

So while it wasn’t Bauhaus, it was a reasonable facsimile thereof, and anyone wanting to lend an ear to early Goth and post-punk would do well to check them out. Wednesday’s Anaheim show was the first of a 30-date U.S. tour that ends in February in L.A.

||| Live: Peter Murphy’s 40 Years of Bauhaus Featuring David J plays the Novo on Feb. 28. Tickets.

Photos by Roy Jurgens