The Cult / The Black Ryder

Andy J Ryan Apr 26, 2023

The Cult – The Big Top, Luna Park, 6 May 2010

The 25th anniversary of The Cult’s landmark Love album world tour to the sanctuary of Sydney.

The night started off promisingly with the ringing, darkly jangling guitars and expansive moods of The Black Ryder providing a quite mesmerising distraction to the early arrivals.

But then things got a bit tense as the advertised start time for The Cult came and went, with every song coming over the PA building agitation, not anticipation. It was 40 minutes later before the band finally took to the stage. Singer Ian Ashbury skulked off soon after and shooed away the photographers after less than a minute, then proceeded to throw and kick the monitors, stands and microphone before the first song was out. Love was the album they were playing for us, but not the feeling we were getting.

The atmosphere was simmering, with Ashbury’s petulance creating more tension with the audience than the music was. A meltdown seemed imminent and the crowd were being goaded with “this isn’t a Bon Jovi gig” and “you don’t know the words, do you?”.

The Cult were singing about the ‘Revolution’ but weren’t really inspiring one. The album’s penultimate track ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ is the band’s calling card, and could have turned this tumultuous evening around. It’s stilted tempo makeover and the fact that nearly all the lyrics were half-swallowed saw it fall a bit short though, ‘Black Angel’ came and went and it was the end of the section.

After a short interlude of oriental music and a video screen of orchids, the band returned for their ‘rock’ set. Ian had ditched the sunnies and attitude, and donned a bandana; and the band ripped into ‘Electric Ocean’ with a renewed vigour. Then the lights dimmed; a spotlight found Billy Duffy standing legs astride and arm poised menacingly above his big white Gretsch. His hand descended and the opening riff of ‘Wildflower’ was a defibrillator hit to the whole night. The rollicking double of ‘Sun King’ and ‘Rise’ followed and even a brand new song ‘Dirty Little Rockstar’ hit the mark.

The band certainly have the anthemic choruses, and in Duffy, the riffs at their disposal to captivate a cavernous room such as this – a point they proved with a final pairing of ‘Fire Woman’ and ‘Love Removal Machine’. But not quite all was forgiven; as a footy commentator may say, this was a show of two halves. So while The Cult came home with a wet sail, the delicate nature of songs on the first half of the Love album probably needed a smaller space and a longer fuse. At least it was authentically volatile.