Exactly on this day, April 26, 40 years ago, in 1985 – The Sisters of Mercy played for the first time in Switzerland at the Volkshaus Zürich during the Armageddon tour. The band had just released their debut album First and Last and Always a month earlier, but they had previously immortalized singles like “Alice” and “Temple of Love” among others.
That April night, the Volkshaus was packed with an audience eager to see the English band live. Among the audience were some friends of the scene like Tom G Warrior (Celtic Frost / Triptykon), DJ JHG Shark (Big Apple), DJ OcusNema (later also Big Apple) and DJ M (Spellbound-Team).
Tom G Warrior (The Quietus interview) “…I saw The Sisters Of Mercy together with Martin Ain from Celtic Frost in Zurich. It was the loudest concert I’ve ever heard in my life. It was so loud you had to leave the hall periodically because it was so painful. But at the same time we witnessed something that we had never witnessed before. When we stood there and we saw “Marian”, “Black Planet” and “First and Last and Always” live, with that heaviness, that darkness, that volume, it was amazing. We both shared a passion for dark wave, it was an influence on Celtic Frost…”.
DJ JHG Shark (Blog jhgshark.ch) “It was a strange concert, there was whistling and screaming between songs but never any applause! I really enjoyed the show, even though at times I felt like much of the sound wasn’t played live. After the concert, I had to go to the Big Apple Club (I was the DJ). The Sisters of Mercy and a few fans also found their way to the club. Some fans suggested I should play some TSOM songs, but I didn’t. Eventually, the members of the band got up to dance, and to the great surprise of some fans present, they also danced to Simple Minds”.
DJ OcusNema “A great memory of a very bad concert acoustically speaking – It was certainly one of the worst concerts I have ever attended. Nevertheless, for me this concert was groundbreaking and had a lot of influence on my future as a DJ. After the show the Sisters of Mercy went to the Big Apple where shortly after I started working as a DJ.
DJ M “I bought the EP Body and Soul at the Lollypop record store in Olten, and I was absolutely thrilled with “Body Electric”. When I heard that they would be playing in Zurich, I just had to be there. The dark electronic sound and the fog will always stay with me”.
In the moments before the show, excitement and heat filled the Volkshaus hall. Suddenly, the lights went out and the stage filled with fog, making it almost impossible to see anything (yes, we know that). Then, the first folksy guitar chords of the new song “First and Last and Always” were heard, along with the bass and the drum sounds of Doktor Avalanche. The fog gradually dissipated and Andrew Eldritch could be seen on stage with his distinctive hat and dark glasses. Wayne Hussey appeared on guitar to his right, and Craig Adams on bass to his left. It was surprising that “the sisters” now presented themselves as a trinity, given that guitarist Gary Marx had recently left the “sisterhood”.
TSOM live at Volkshaus Zürich / Photo by Martin Portmann (Spellbound-Team)
TSOM live at Volkshaus Zürich / (c) Photo by Sonja Flury
Below is an excerpt from the blog I Was A Teenage Sisters of Mercy Fan by Nikolas Vitus Lagartija, who listened to an audio of the entire concert, thanks to a recording provided by Phil Verne – Admin of the Facebook group TSOM 1980-1985.
“…The volume issues and the strange atmosphere are immediately apparent. Doktor Avalanche is incredibly high in the mix and the beats bludgeoning the senses. The Volkshaus acoustics are particularly effective on Body and Soul, with Hussey’s guitar reverberating around the arena, whilst the thin-ness of the guitar sound is all too apparent on Walk Away. Hussey makes a guitar pitch error during his No…No…No… backing vocals section on No Time To Cry, but Eldritch makes an even bigger gaffe on Amphetamine Logic, coming in two lines early and singing the chorus over the verse backing, leaving Adams and Hussey to play the chorus as an instrumental on the first play-through. The singer was in notably finer form on “Emma” and “Marian”, and the recording ends with the best live version which I have heard of “Train”…”.
