The Ice Queen of the Scene was the theme of last weekend, with my first chance ever to see her perform live on Friday, then on the following evening to discuss her iconic career as seen on the pages of Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth with author Cathi Unsworth. Back to back Banshee action beckoned!
Like many I was astounded when Siouxsie Sioux announced she would headline ‘Mouth of the Tyne’ festival, a weekend of live music in the picturesque coastal town of Tynemouth. More at home to popular and easy listening artists like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, The Proclaimers, Lulu and Paloma Faith, it seemed an unlikely place to find the post-punk prophet leader of the Banshees.
But I wasn’t going to complain, considering Tynemouth is barely twenty-five minutes away on the Metro. Even better, organisers North Tyneside Council were happy to arrange a guest-list place for me. This, of course, after I’d leapt online when tickets were made available and snapped three up! Not to worry, more friends to bring with to this incredibly unique event.
What a location, then! A fortified Priory, ransacked during the Viking raids and now preserved in happy ruin, Tynemouth evokes similarities with Whitby and other former Abbeys of decrepit gothic splendour. The infamous English weather held, bestowing clear skies and bright sunshine on a crowd of flinching, black clad devotees of the Banshees. Continuing the contrast, Siouxsie arrived in a flowing blue fabric, her trademark spiky black Eighties hairdo replaced with a graceful grey-flecked bob, all smiles and ‘welcomes!’
Her band kicked off with the obscure Voices before moving smoothly through a classic double-header Israel/Arabian Knights, two of my favourite Banshees tracks. Listening carefully to the singer’s performance, you can hear her natural register is lower and slower, but does not want for force and tone. She twirls and sweeps on stage, gesturing to the crowd like so many gigs and videos before. The classics are heavy in the mix – signature Beatles cover “Dear Prudence”, seductive “Face to Face” and the evergreen cautionary tale of “Cities in Dust”.
The end approaches with Christine, into Happy House before a belting performance of “Into a Swan”, her debut solo single from 2007. The band then finally return to encore, with Spellbound and ending on Hong Kong Garden, forty-four years and eleven months after its first release. It’s still a hypnotic whirlwind anthem coursing with all the hidden, repressed anger and hatred of otherness that pollutes our polite suburban society. Yet its utimate author is friendly, even chatty on stage – at one point lifting her heavy shades and commenting dryly “That’s the scariest fucking thing you’ll see all evening.”
Earlier in the night, she even commented she’d taken a dip in the freezing North Sea, just at the back of the stage (down a cliff, too!) As the happy crowd streamed from the Priory grounds, we felt only a warm glow that was either the setting sun, or the evening’s stupendous entertainment.
No rest for the wicked however, as the very next day I was due to host a Q&A with journalist and author Cathi Unsworth on her new book, “Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth”. With Lol Tolhurst’s publication upcoming and John Robb’s ‘Art of Darkness‘ already out, it was a cluttered market to join. Cathi’s unique angle is particularly intriguing however, contrasting the Banshee’s provocative and transformative lead singer with the bellicose and divisive Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher) who reigned during their rise.
I was fascinated by this concept, having always (perhaps naievely) viewed goth as not dominated by a political dimension. But as Cathi successfully points out, Siouxsie and her contemporaries were emerging and defining a new sound against a tumultuous political and cultural landscape – and we got into the fine detail of inspirations and reactions, taboo subjects and esoteric philosophies with an attentive audience in the beautiful surroundings of the Tyneside Cinema.
Kudos to the Cinema, and organiser Professor Claire Nally of Northumbria University for arranging such a popular event that tempted many hardy souls who had watched Siouxsie the previous evening. Their questions probed the origins, and mused on the future, of the goth scene and we could have discussed them long into the evening (running the risk of becoming a Reddit thread!) but we had other plans. A screening of the 1984 fantasy thriller “The Company of Wolves”, directed by Neil Jordan and starring Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury and David Warner was to cap the evening, with a cameo appearance from Danielle Dax, another Eighties female thorn in the side of Mrs Thatcher’s image!
I’d never seen it before and found it an enthralling, eerie and suprisingly mature tale of the wolves within and without, gorgeously set and shot and faithfully adapted from a short story by Angela Carter herself. A fitting end for a weekend in the company of women who had stormed forth and changed the world – for good or ill. I leave the closing words to Siouxsie herself…
“People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse. It allowed us to be aggressive.”