The astute, or perhaps just early arrivals to what ultimately turned into a large, if not capacity crowd were treated to something which would have seemed unlikely, if not downright implausible in years past. That hardest core of the hardcore from the only wild west frontier we could ever call our own - Taranaki - presented seated and intimate with acoustic guitar and voice. Here was Craig Radford, Sticky Filth's vocalist and bassist, belting out a cache from the catalogue of Filth together with more recently penned numbers.
Hardcore recontextualised is an interesting proposition, and here ostensibly fitting in the wake of the personal tragedies that derailed Sticky Filth's 25th anniversary plans in 2010. Does it work? In spades. The fire and grit and defiance are all intact. The integrity remains. Think Ian MacKaye in The Evens for a touchstone, but better than thinking, seize the opportunity to catch the man live.
The anticipation for the main event was palpable, as these icons with unbroken roots stretching back to the very inception of post-punk gothdom took the stage, customarily drowned in dense purple smoke.
Doktor Avalanche - tonight a wall of Apple Macs - initiated the metronomic rhythms, and the ritual began. Guitarists Chris Catalyst and Ben Christo provided the strutting rock spectacle, carving the heavy, crystalline riffs with dexterity and panache, trading blow for blow.
For his part, Eldritch doesn't rely on any rocks gimmicks. He doesn't pout or pose, he neither swaggers nor swings. He sure as hell doesn't smile. He doesn't have to - he wrote his own rules decades ago. He has that quality of presence that cannot be learned or faked; it's called charisma. And that voice. Eldritch evokes the air of a man in control. From a performance standpoint, he's physically subdued, yet simply mesmerising.
