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Tour overview | Setlists overview | Merchandise overview | Interviews overview | Tour poem |
July 18
September 23 Personnel
Andrew Eldritch Crew
Nige: Lites
Setlist
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Tour overview
On July 28th the Washington date was announced; then it was all quiet for about a month until end of August, when a flood of announcements started. The last date -- Mexico City -- showed up in mid-September. We are proud to remind that this site announced it earlier than the official sources. Opening act for all American dates was announced too -- DJ Tube, who spent most of the stage time drinking beer, dancing around and generally having great time; the crowd's response was mostly hostile. The "monkey boy" performance was good (or bad) enough to be mentioned in nearly every review, if only to define time spent drinking, smoking, buying merchandise or just plain crow-counting.
Name of the tour
One of interpretations of the name of this tour might include imagining America's geographical position from European point of view -- somewhere on the other side of the ocean, right before the huge Pacific; not surprisingly, most (European) maps picture the continent on the left edge of the planet. The tour logo also seemed to emphasize the edge-of-the-world idea. Post-tour note in the official site confirmed this theory: "The Sisters have just returned from 17 dates at the planet edge, in the USA, Canada and Mexico". It all started with the beginning Technically, Braga gig was not a part of To the Planet Edge, but it already showed framework for the 1999 Sisters agenda: the setlist reminded those of previous years, but War on Drugs and Anaconda were out. Afterhours were played before Sisters entrance first and last time in 1999, and so was Alice during the main set. All most acclaimed additions to the setlist only showed up in USA (More ramblings about the setlist are in setlists overview section).
The goers all noted unexpected change in Andrew's mood: although crowd was predominantly gothic and sad, blond Eldritch was beaming happiness in all possible directions. The most satisfying explanation for this unexpected state of mood was presence of his girlfriend (apparently, in Toronto he boldly announced that "you'll be happy to know that my girlfriend did show up"; the rumor machine has it that he met the girlfriend during the Event Horizon gig in Toronto, and was interested enough to spend a month in her place next Autumn, but the machine cannot confirm neither if that was the same female person nor if any of the above is true). Next gig in New York continued USA tour in the appropriate manner: crowd was dead in both movements and appearance, just like the last time in the city. Train/Detonation Boulevard were played in the opening slot, where it stayed for some time. In contrast, Philadelphia's crowd was up for it, and when they heard Sisters guitarist strumming Sweet Home Alabama on his guitar, they managed to convince the band to come back for Sister Ray with that same Sweet Home Alabama included. Radio troubles
Toronto radio station The Edge raised false hopes of getting live interview with Andrew himself; those patiently waiting by radios/Real Player were left without anything as Eldritch refused to give an interview on the day of a gig (the station falsely blamed delays at the border for the failure). They didn't get Andrew's interview in 1998 under exactly same circumstances. Some people never learn. Another radio related story was associated with a Detroit show: Darren Revell off the popular local Planet 96.3 station shared so called "insider information" that the band do not play live and use prerecorded DATs instead. Those used to frequent soundchecks, totally improvised Sister Ray, songs with their unique live twist and occasional equipment failures/band's mistakes (most notably, a-capella of Stop Draggin My Heart Around was introduced when Doktor's beat died mid-song in Chicago, 1991/07/12) can understand it can not be truth: the only prerecorded sound in TSOM's shows is preshow intro music. Supporting paradoxes
Minneapolis crowd (21 years or older or with fake IDs only) was much more active, and the band happy as ever; this time a warm-up act -- Otis Lee Crenshaw -- was announced together with the gig itself and marketed as part of the show, but for unclear reasons Otis didn't share his "bourbon-soaked, trailer-park philosophy of life" with Sisters audience. Keeping with wavelike pattern of crowd activeness, Denver's crowd was pretty inactive once again. This gig's page includes a nice and warm story of meeting Andrew after the show which is well worth reading. Hotel California West coast gigs started in San Francisco, in venue twice as big as in Event Horizon times, but back then there were two shows in the city. Same as back then, Andrew ignored the Californian antismoking laws (no smoking in bars/clubs with alcohol served). A highly negative review of the show raised yet another stir in Dominion, best mails of which are also in this site.
Nearly half of Anaheim gig was played with house lights on, due to triggered fire alarm and early curfew baring band from postponing the show. In the words of Eldritch, "it's amazing the difference a cigarette can make". The last US west coast gig was in Las Vegas' House of Blues, thus setting another tradition: off three remaining US gigs, one was in another HOB outlet, and Atlanta's venue was former House of Blues. Reportedly, Viva Las Vegas wasn't played. Hurricane time Lost Wages city gig was followed by the long and not really exciting 40 hour bus trip across USA to the east coast. First gig over there, in Atlanta, featured an active crowd and a distant feeling of deja vu as Andrew sang Giving Ground, the A-bomb in mid-80s Sisterhood wars, to a bloke sporting Mission 1988 tour t-shirt. Few weeks before Sisters arrival south of east coast was fearing hurricane Floyd, one of the hugest to threaten USA; it settled down long before the band came, but stormy weather was still prevalent when they played in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. The latter date was in the middle of Disneyland, sparking tons and tons of jokes, most notably, "Welcome to Disneyland" shouted by a fan in middle of the concert. USA, or, as Eldritch called it in the Club Motor interview, "very, very violent Disneyland" leg of the tour ended there. Down the Mexican way
The 1999 band did both things: after Disneyland they turned the Mexico way and finished the tour in Mexico City with a stormy gig including the by-then standard setlist, flavored with Comfortably Numb/Some Kind of Stranger and the Sister Ray jam. This was their first gig in the country. An earthquake in the city several weeks before that reportedly was just a coincidence. ...and your trust lies broken In late 1998 The Sisters of Mercy Tours site wrote about the latest developments of Sisters history for the Summer'98 tour page):
Sadly enough, we were right. No new releases showed up, although something is still blinking on the unreachable horizon -- in Allstar interview Eldritch stated: "It will take us another six months to finish [the new album], and then shop it around. I would hope to be putting out singles somewhere at the end of the spring". The reusage potential is still present.
On several US dates Andrew's final farewell was "see you soon, very soon".
Must be good if it isn't followed by yet another tease tour with more
or less the same setlist, no new releases and another bunch of
promises.
All pictures on this page were taken by Elizabeth Victoria Bouras (evb@psychotica.net) in the 1999/09/23 Washington gig and are being used by kind permission; full versions are available at http://www.psychotica.net/evb/sisters. |
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