The New Wave Gods smiled on my friends and me last night! Not only did I get to see the Goth King himself for the third time, it was Peter’s birthday! He was quite self-deprecating over being 51 now but he’s in great company with so many other performers carrying on in their Fifties while putting on awesome shows. Heck two of his major influences (Bowie and Iggy) are in their Sixties and continue to rock.
He doesn’t have anything new out yet. I guess Peter is on tour to help promote the new Bauhaus album which is pretty good. He even performed “Adrenalin” from it. The crowd was more excited over him sneaking in parts of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” on a song I didn’t recognize. Most material he did wasn’t easily recognized by me, I will have to ask Scott, the bigger fan amongst the three of us and I did spot a co-worker who knew more than me. Don’t take the previous comment as a negative statement. Peter is a great performer I try to see ever since he impressed me in 1988, namely by surprising the crowd with his cover of “Purple Rain” for an encore. The dude has presence too. He’s well under six feet tall yet when he’s on stage, he looks like he’s in the NBA.
Peter playing a mystery instrument during the bridge of “She’s in Parties”
Personally, the big highlight was getting to see Peter sing “She’s in Parties” which was the first song I liked by Bauhaus; living out in the Sticks (physically and culturally) during my last two years of high school made me a late bloomer. For this encore, he let one of the roadies sing the first verse of his hit “Cuts You Up” because it was the guy’s birthday too! How nice of him! I’m relieved he didn’t know Mark took me to this for my upcoming birthday. I would’ve choked. It’s been a while since I knew all the lyrics to “Indigo Eyes” or “Time Has Nothing To Do With It.”