1998/08/29, Summer Horizon festival, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Written by Christian Wojtysiak of Head and Star for The Sisters of Mercy Tours site

I have seen a great Sisters gig in January (Herford) and a brilliant gig in July (Stavenhagen) so I was really looking forward to see the last gig of the Summer'98 tour. I was not disappointed: a great show, although the sound could have been a little better. Unfortunately the set was not as long as the other Summer gigs. The festival had to be finished at 22.00 obviously because the festival area (owned by the Gelsenkirchen rocker club Freeway Riders) was quite close to the Ruhr Zoo and not too far away from the city. I don't remember the tracklist 100% (does anyone know about a tape recording?) but it was similar to the other gigs. They started with F&L&A and finished after 90 minutes with This Corrosion. No Comfortably Numb/SKOS which is one of my all time favorites and no Sister Ray this time.

I never saw a band member of the Sisters anywhere else than on stage so I was quite surprised to meet Adam Pearson before the gig. I was standing at the entrance with two other Reptiles when a white van stopped in front of us and some people jumped out. One of them was Adam. Before I realized what was happening he was through the entrance, followed by a guy who carried large numbers of tins with energy drinks (very good for mixing with vodka;) ).

After the Sisters had to finish the their set a girl entered the stage and tried to tell the masses about an after show party. The crowd wanted some more Sisters stuff instead and so the girl was not received very friendly. I guess most of the fans from the UK or Belgium did not understand her anyway, everybody around was screaming "F*** off!" or asked me whether I speak German.

Missing the first chance to get an autograph I should get a second. After the gig I saw a girl leaving the backstage area, probably a member of the rocker gang who were responsible for the security. I asked her for her backstage pass and she answered: "I don't need one, just go in if you want". A short look to the other security guys who had other things to do and a friend of mine and me were into the backstage area. As we could not find any band members we just wanted to go back when I noticed that there were lights on in one of the caravans standing there. I looked in and saw no on else but Andrew himself, still wearing his stage outfit (white turtle neck shirt) and no sun glasses. "Now or never" I thought and asked for an autograph. Unfortunately I could not see Andrews reaction because an amazing tall and fat guy jumped out of the caravan and shouted something I don't want to repeat here. I asked him to get me an autograph (polite as polite could be), he took our tickets and went into the van again. The guy looks really evil and does his job very well but I think he's got a good heart. After some time he came back, told us to f*** off and gave back our tickets - both signed by Eldritch and Pearson.

Leaving the backstage we bumped into Mike and got our autographs collection completed. Mike is a very nice guy indeed, we had a short conversation with him about the Sisters, music in general and he told us about the work on the new album.

They want to write about 20 songs and choose the best for the album then. Approximately one third is already finished (=Come Together, Summer, War On Drugs, Suzanne, Romeo Down, Will I Dream? => 6 songs, 3*6=18) If I remember it right they have recorded "rough mixes" only so I'm not quite sure whether "work on the new album" means the recording of it or writing the songs only. They were still looking for a distributor for America and a record company for the album which must be able to understand the work of the band, seems to be quite difficult to find such a company. Maybe the new single will be released in spring 1999.

For Andrew everything must be perfect: especially the new record and everything else, too. They always use the same lights and sound equipment. In small clubs it's the same lights they use as when they play the big festivals for instance.

A journalist joined us and topics changed to music in general. Mike said that there are bands like the Spice Girls or Bon Jovi and that he has no problem with them. There are people who like this kind of music, he's doing something different but does not regard himself as something better. The journalist missed the point completely and asked Mike "so you are a fan of the Spice Girls?" and later he seemed to think that Mr. Varjak is some kind of guest musician. Oh dear, please do some research before you try to make an interview.

After some time Mike had to leave 'cause he wanted to join the other Sisters. He told us that there should be a large world tour when the new album is released so I'm looking forward to some more great gigs.

Written by Chris Sampson (Chris@cgs123.demon.co.uk) for The Sisters of Mercy Tours site

I enjoyed Christian's story of his encounter with Robbo (the tour manager) at Gelsenkirchen. Robbo wasn't in a good mood that day. The local Hells Angels were doing security and had put a Rottweiler dog guarding the Sisters dressing room. Early in the day Robbo tried to get into the dressing room whereupon the dog attacked him. Now Robbo used to be in the Parachute Regiment and knows how to handle himself. Eventually he got the dog off him, but not before his combat trousers had been shredded. He spent the rest of the day with them held together by safety pins.

Written by Sven Togni (togni@pandora.be) for Dominion mailing list

They hit the stage at 20.45 as scheduled and knew they had a 10 pm curfew, which they ignored for about 20 minutes. The show was good, a bit short and the stage was way too small. Sound was a inferior to Eurorock.

Not too many people so at most no problems to build pyramids, which was helped by Von telling security "some of them are my friends".

For the rest nothing too special except how we saw Von backstage - but that remains a secret!

> What about the good Doktor's new luminous cables? Added that extra touch of color!

Are you sure they were new? Maybe they were not covered up this time due to the small stage and that they could not build their normal "cage"

Written by Tobias Dorf (heartwork@wtal.de) for Dominion mailing list

Before the intro in Gelsenkirchen there was a 8-10 minutes long instrumental song to be heard, and a lot of people discussed if this may be Andrews work. I heard ideas like "98 version of Valentine" or rereremix of "Sandstorm" by SSV (hehe). Has anyone any idea what this was?

Written by Spencer Pawson (yjq40@dial.pipex.com) for Dominion mailing list

> Before the intro in Gelsenkirchen there was a 8-10 minutes long
> instrumental song

I believe the phrase is "saxaphone jazz-wank"

Written by Chris Sampson (Chris@cgs123.demon.co.uk) for Dominion mailing list

New World Order was played at Gelsenkirchen, these days complete with spoken (actually more like a hiss) word vocal. What no-one's noticed is that the outro music that night appeared to be a ultra-rough demo of War on Drugs complete with screaming Varjak guitar feedback. Anyone else hear this?

Written by Raf Toninato (osm10@siemens.be) for Dominion mailing list

I definitely liked the 'rough' version of Giving Ground, with those riffs. Perfect.

And Suzanne gets better and better.

And Vision Thing of course, one of the best I've heard since 92.

Written by Jochen Upheber (mercyman@t-online.de) for Dominion mailing list

Apart from the absence of Comfortably Numb and Sister Ray the setlist corresponded to those of the earlier summer gigs.

Although in my opinion the whole show couldn't reach the brilliance of the show at Neerpelt I had a great time.