With the late announcement of Mike Peters being added to the Cults appearance in Swansea, it seemed only fair to take my spot early and offer Michael Leslie Peters my support for the two hundred and God knows how many times. Now almost everybody I’ve spoken to who was there said how good his appearance was and sure I’d like to concur I thought his voice sounded really strong and there was an urgency to his performance as he knocked out some recent(ish) bangers from his vast repertoire but I really do struggle with the band-in-a-box performance maybe I’m just a traditionalist like Mr Duffy who later in the Cults performance spoke about it being live musicians up there and not a laptop or other aids, I don’t, however, think he was having a go at anyone in particular just live music in general.

Call me old fashioned but there’s something special about a band hitting the stage and for the next however long feeding off the energy of the music rather than the cold and disciplined karaoke style of using backing tracks (very clever technology I’m sure but I’m struggling to get my head around it). Anyway, I know this opinion won’t be popular with people but having seen him live well over two hundred times I like to think I know my subject and whilst I wouldn’t ever enter the Mike Peters Gathering mastermind I would rather hear him do the acoustic solo performance as exactly that and I’ve seen countless amazing solo shows from the man.

In a slimmed-down set Mike began with ‘Beautiful’ then followed it up with a couple that the casual listener might well remember ‘Strength’ followed by ‘Rain In The Summertime’ which got the audience singing along enthusiastically. Mike then played ‘Transition’ from the ‘Forwards’ album and explained his current health situation and his appeal from the stage for people to register on their way out with LHS in the hope that they could be matched in the future which went down really well and I hope there were plenty in attendance who did register.

The penultimate song was Peters being joined by Billy Duffy for a stonking rendition of Coloursounds ‘Fade In Fade Out and Fade Away’ which worked really well and took me back to that first Gathering show from Coloursound that to this day was one of the highlights of all those shows I’ve seen and the Camden Falcon show from when the coloursound band kicked off. It was great to see Mike Peters on Stage in my hometown again and I look forward to seeing him with a full band in the future be it here or wherever, we’ll go marching on with our hands held high. Which only left ’68 Guns’ and a rapturous ovation as the arena filled up for this emotional support set. The energy Peters puts into such a short set is emotional considering what he’s currently going through with his treatment and how he finds that energy is something 99.9% of performers simply don’t have even without his health issues. Great times and indeed MLP stay alive.

The Cult are up next and a band who’ve not had a new album for a couple of years and who seem to have had a resurgence of late but to be fair have toured a whole bunch since covid. I have seen them a number of times over the last half a decade or so and pretty much thoroughly enjoyed every performance be it in Florida at the House Of Blues to Death Cult on Billy’s home soil to the Cult on every tour since ‘Love’ and they’ve always given me good reason to come back for more even the time they supported Alice Cooper in this very arena a few years back. I don’t know if it was fatigue but that night they seemed to go through the motions which was strange because the times over the last four decades I’ve seen them they’ve always turned in a performance regardless of how they played be it the hedonistic days of ‘Love’ in Cardiff Uni or the ‘Electric’ tour and its hard rock excess to Wembley arena and the drink and drug haze to Finsbury park or The Marquee one off in support of ‘Ceromony’ the Cult have never been dull. In fact Last year in Cardiff Castle they were bang on form and the Death Cult in Manchester was exceptional.

Tonight with the intro tape of the dam buster fading out with the promise of songs from every album (cough cough I don’t think so) they delivered a really impressive set that wasn’t just heavy as fuck in places (‘War’) they played some old gems (‘Brother Wolf Sister Moon’) and one of the best Cult albums ever (Self Titled) ‘Star’.

Early set we were treated to ‘In The Clouds’, ‘Rise’ and ‘The Witch’ and to be fair the band sounded on fire. It was Astbury who looked fitter than he’s ever done and his vocals are in great form, pretty much nailing all the high parts which is something he hasn’t always done (Finsbury Park and early Electric tours) he clearly doesn’t smoke and Drink and do other vocal damaging substances and his voice is all the better for it as he prowled the vast stage mesmerising the audience none more was it evident than their RSD single ‘Lucifer’ whilst Duffy threw out the shapes that helped propel the band to these dizzy heights against a music press that was only ever happy to have a pop at the pair. I believe Duffy once said of support tonight he used to love the Alarm when they had a new record out because the press would have a day off slagging the Cult.

The anniversary set list tonight was pretty much the same as every night of the tour and to be fair it wasn’t reliant on one period and my least favourite album being ‘Sonic Temple’ we had its standout songs which was a bonus. It’s always great to hear the likes of ‘Resurrection Joe’ and the awesome ‘Spiritwalker’ and as time flew by the main set was brought to a thumping finale with ‘Love Removal Machine’ and we were done.

The encore saw ‘Loves’ ‘Brother Wolf Sister Moon’, before the inevitable ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ ended an exceptionally good set and that folks was a wrap. They came, they performed and they once again conquered with a superb set of power, Glory and finesse from most corners of their history but I’d love to have heard something off ‘Ceremony’ if I was to be a bit picky and leaving ‘Pheonix’ in the set wouldn’t have gone amiss either but that being fanboy needy and having a catalogue of banging tunes always helps regardless of what style they do it.

The Cult has a beating heart and when Astbury is in this kind of form they are one of the UK’s finest Rock bands no question about it from the riffs and tones of the Gretch or Les Paul Duffy seemed happy and right on it tonight and that always makes for a good set. The fact they are still here selling out 3,500 capacity venues on a school night is all you need to know whilst Sounds, The NME, and Melody Maker are all long gone means that he who laughs last laughs longest. Duffy lamenting the sound of live Rock n Roll music was loudly applauded and on this evidence it would be crazy to disagree! Chow Baby!

Author: Dom Daley