The superfans ate it up, but Peter Murphy seemed tired at his Ogden Theatre show on Wednesday. Photos by .
You know the overused affirmation, “Dance like nobody’s watching”?
Perhaps you shouldn’t.
At the show at the on Wednesday, ridiculously peculiar dance moves seemed to emanate from otherwise normal middle-aged people. This included Peter Murphy himself, who, with a sad and far-off look in his eye, pranced about the stage like a show pony. It was a strange concert, but not in the way that a concert by the Godfather of Goth could be; it was a ritual, a gathering, where people could revisit an old hero from another life.
I scanned the audience that night because the crowd was of special interest. Gruff, aged Goths with potbellies shared standing room with couples that looked like they had hired a babysitter for a hot night out. Down in front, the new generation pressed themselves against the barrier, wearing lipstick that belied the braces underneath. There were more than a dozen folk in Bauhaus t-shirts.
This was not a Bauhaus concert, to be sure. What seemed peculiar, though, is that it appeared some people had come that night thinking it would be. Mr. Murphy probably expected this, especially from the moon-eyed teenagers in the front, and opened the show with Bauhaus’ “Burning from the Inside.” I was delighted, of course. I am certainly one for nostalgia, but I usually abandon my hopes with much older musicians. It was a by-the-book rendition, done almost robotically, but it was still exciting.
After the song was over, his attitude seemed to be, “Right lads, that’s enough of that.” The fog disappeared and the stage went from dark, conspiratorial red to jolly purple, green and white. I suspect he played the Bauhaus song first in order to avoid any confusion — this was a show about Peter Murphy exclusively.
As a performer, Peter Murphy is obviously a bastion of a bygone era. He maintains the foppish
showmanship of his semi-contemporaries from the glam and new wave movements, wafting about the stage in an almost absurdly theatrical way. When singing, he often matched his actions to the lyrics — cringing, for example, in the stage lights at the mention of the word “light” like any decent Goth. The songs were rendered in his traditional throaty groaning. He swayed gently, light on his feet, bending in and out of choruses like a thin tree in the wind. His backing band attacked the material with considerable gusto, grinding their hips into their guitars during particularly satisfying bridges and contorting their faces. But I was suspicious.
Peter Murphy’s solo material is not the stuff of legend. It is not something a new musical movement might grow out of; it is gently contemporary, easy on the ears, and just weird enough that older weirdos could feel safe in enjoying it. Because of this, one might think it would be easier to perform. No more rising out of coffins or donning epic costumes would be necessary.
But Mr. Murphy seemed tired– irked, even. I thought that perhaps his touring schedule wasn’t affording him enough leisure time, or that Denver might not be his favorite city. Perhaps, though, his perceived irritation came from his worrying over sound. The sound check at the beginning took an absurd amount of time, with everything being checked three — or even four — times in a row. After the group got started, a strange little man emerged from backstage and
kneeled behind Mr. Murphy to fiddle with something embedded in the back of his coat. This
happened frequently, and although I’m sure it had a reasonable purpose, it resembled tick-picking between two apes.
I left the concert somewhat blankly. I was an uncommon audience member, sitting out the loud
applause and whistling that each song evoked from everyone else. I wasn’t enough of a superfan to heap affection on a famous musician, although I enjoyed seeing him standing only a few feet away from me. If anything, the concert was cultural homework from which I could better understand a generation I just barely missed, yet one that’s so often imitated. I was interested in what happened to people long after their favorite epoch closed its doors on them. I wondered if, 20-some years ago, some of the people in the audience would be able to picture themselves in the way I saw them on Wednesday at the Ogden.
Would they be surprised that they were still caked with makeup and shoe-horned into vinyl clothing? Would they be even more surprised to find that they were clipping pagers to their shorts? Youth brings a certain ferocity, both in fans and in musicians. I’m still trying to figure out whether the loss of that ferocity is natural, or simply unfortunate.
Alex Edgeworth is a Denver-based writer and regular Reverb contributor.
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