(Photo by Gretel Sarmiento)
By Gretel Sarmiento
The best furs don’t come from dead animals: they come with guitars, they jump and down, and they sing songs with a distinctive raw voice.
British rockers The Psychedelic Furs are very much alive and still on the run, and they proved it song after song Friday night at Fort Lauderdale’s Culture Room.
A simple stage, with no other adornment but the music, accompanied the band during their two sets, the first of which covered all the tracks from the 1981 Talk Talk Talk album including All of This And Nothing, She Is Mine, It Goes On and Pretty in Pink. The closer the fans got to frontman Richard Butler, the harder his obsure poetic lyrics seemed to bite.
There was no opening act. A video of David Bowie’s Reality tour warmed up the standing crowd while it waited to get cozy. Dumb Waiters opened up the concert around 9 p.m. The members had made their entrance and right away got into it. No hellos were said. No kissing up to the crowd. Songs now in their 20s and 30s suddenly sounded fresh, charged with all the energy and emotion accumulated over the years that they went unsung.
The songs were the true stars of the night, although everyone adored the impressive saxophone by Mars Williams. The band’s current lineup also included Tim Butler (bass), Rich Good (guitar), Paul Garisto (drums) and Amanda Kramer (keyboards). The crowd also loved it whenever Richard Butler decided to smile.
The relaxed singer and songwriter, whose known first passion is painting, mostly kept to the lyrics and his amusing mannerisms. The crowd got to see exactly what his visual interpretations look like: If, to the mix of rebel child and mime, you were to throw in a little bit of Sid & Nancy‘s Gary Oldman, then you’d get the idea.
”Richard!” People kept calling out his name as if they knew him, and you couldn’t blame them. Even the last person standing in the room, pinned to the back wall, could have gone home and safely proclaimed: Butler was right there. And he was, dressed in black slacks and black blazer. Saxman Williams sported a military-style jacket while guitarist Good’s sweat kept dripping from his feather-like hairstyle.
These are not the furs that rest, moribund and comfortable, on someone’s neck and shoulders. These got the fans singing and jumping in a tight room full of strangers and, I suspect, talking for hours after the show.
At 9:45 p.m., the band took a 15-minute break and came back with Sister Europe, Love My Way, Heartbeat and Heaven, among others. Maybe it was just me, but President Gas has never sounded better. On this night, the 1982 song had more guts and emotion than before. Perhaps it is the times we live that make it seem more relevant.
No lies, back in the government
No tears, party time is here again
President Gas is up for president
Line up, put your kisses down
Say yeah, say yes again
Stand up, there’s a head count
President Gas on everything but roller skates
It’s sick the price of medicine
Stand up, we’ll put you on your feet again
Open up your eyes
Just to check that you’re asleep again
President Gas is President Gas again
He comes in from the left sometimes
He comes in from the right
After Heartbreak Beat, Butler suddenly left the stage, and the rest of the band soon followed. It was clear that the Furs wanted the well-behaved crowd to lose it a little bit more, go a little wild, and ask to return to the stage, which they did with My Time.
Butler sang it in sort of a mellow way, more or less what he sounds like in Maybe Someday, one of the songs from the very personal solo material he produced while the band took a break in the ‘90s. During this time he and his brother Tim also formed Love Spit Love and recorded two albums.
(Photo by Gretel Sarmiento)
In 2000, the band fortunately regrouped and released a live album Beautiful Chaos: Greatest Hits Live, which also featured a new studio recording, Alive (For Once In My Lifetime). The ongoing Talk Talk Talk tour is all about celebrating the 30th anniversary of the album of that name. Following their performance tonight in Jacksonville, the band will head to Atlanta and Nashville.
But none of these appearances can really be considered the Furs’ time to shine again. In reality, they have never stopped shining. A band that needs nothing more than a platform in a small dark room with a few bright lights to change your life is not like any other band. It can afford to go dormant for a while and go bare at a show. This is after all what fans love about them: the lack of small talk, the rawness.
At about 11 p.m., Butler said “Thank you,” and that was it. The confused crowd thought it could get one more song out of them but as Butler had just told them: My time is my time. The TV screen that had played Bowie at the beginning turned to The Rolling Stones. The crowd left.
Moments later a biker stopped at a red light sees a group of still hyped-up fans cross the street. He asks “Who was playing at the Culture Room?”
Someone responds: “The Psychedelic Furs.”
“Oh, man!” said the biker, realizing what he had just missed.
FIRST SET
Dumb Waiters
Pretty in Pink
I Wanna Sleep With You
No Tears
Mr. Jones
Into You Like A Train
It Goes On
So Run Down
All of This And Nothing
She Is Mine
SECOND SET
Sister Europe
Love My Way
Heartbeat
President Gas
Highwire Days
Heaven
Heartbreak Beat
My Time