Sick, sick, sick of six six six.

Coverage from Current 93 concert inaugurating OFF Festival 2011 in Katowice.

I’ll start from the beginning, that is, I must explain that Current 93 is a very special band to me. There are a lot of memories and fondness associated with it. It is a special class project whose albums are consciously played as rarely as possible, fearing that it might suddenly become tride. Please be aware that I do not know neither all the lyrics nor the titles by heart, and this simple coverage is just an expression of my will to share my personal impressions after the long-awaited show of the respectable musical project.

Centrum Kultury Katowice (GCK) is a not too pretty, large lump of concrete edifice near the railway station. Precisely at 6 p.m. we were allowed to enter its interior, where we spotted the first tempting little table with CDs and vinyl records, and where we could decently use the loo. They didn’t let us into the concert hall yet. Finally, when we got in, our eyes saw an insi de chich looked like a really big old philharmonic hall in a typical style of socialistic times, wood flooring, olive-green fold-up chairs in rows descending one beyond another so that everyone was able to see the stage. We manager to take the seats in the honourable second row, but we soon noticed that it wasn’t the best decision– the eyeshot was perfect indeed, but the whole sound was escaping far to the back of the hall because the speakers were picketed at the extreme ends of a wiiide stage.

I don’t actually like the ‘supporting-bands-idea’ at all, well but, since they are there, I tend to respect the people dedicating their time and energy to present their artwork in public. Current 93 was supported by a British band Trembling Bells. Being called the troubadours of XXI Century, they played some kind of rock-folk Celtic songs, unfortunately not very catchy even though they were sung by a pretty vocalist with a high voice. Among all the songs, two of them marked out, one piece performed a capella by the mentioned blonde girl together with a drummer, and some cover of Scott Walker’s track, but this one was pre-announced… We’ve spent most of the show wheeling and dealing to find the right way and place at the back of the hall, as we all, me and my friends, are more auditory than visual persons.

The band was courteously farewelled with applause, then it was break time and we evacuated to a suitable place. It seemed we’ve been waiting for C93 for ages, more and more people were coming back from the break until the hall was almost filled up. Finally, after half an hour, the lights went out and we were welcomed in quite an unconventional way –Andrew Liles walked onto the stage, wearing a distinguished black velvet jacket and less distinguished white trainers, he switched something on at his sound operating table and suddenly the speakers exploded with an old well-known hit song by the group Boney M "Rivers of Babylon". A greeting joke? Perhaps, a kind of, and maybe not necessarily. If you don’t know much about C93, just try searching for the song lyrics and find out some basis of the band leader, David Tibet, and history of his beliefs and biblical inspirations. Anyway, soon the stage was filled with the Rest of musicians, and, as the last one appearing – Mr Mostimportant – traditionally barefoot, in a hat, with Jewish sidelocks, wearing trousers with creases. Then it began for good. The intro turned into Invocation coming from the latest album of C93. This was how the theatrical-poetic concert started, lasting long two hours and a half, rayed only with few lights, minimalistic screening of pictures from the album covers and with thin palls of scenic smoke.

Most of the presented material was made up by tracks from new albums, but there were also some relishes trawled from the older albums and EPs: "Black Ships Ate The Sky", "She Took Us To The Places Where The Sun Sets", "The Sound Of The Storm Was Spears" (dedicated to the girl-fans who came from Moscow and Prague), or finally three pearls played as an encore "Neimandswasser", "Lucifer Over London" (awaited hitsong) and "Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still" (a beautiful epilogue acted together with the guitarist Michael Cashmore). The melancholic mood given by piano chords flowing out from the finger tips of Baby Dee intertwined with surprisingly dynamic guitar arrangements. Especially the older pieces were attired in new, zappy forms.

It was definitely David who fixe everyone’s attention on himself doing his one of its kind storch dance from time to time, joking that he talks too much, that next time he’s going to grow a moustache (probably following Freddie Mercury’s example), laughing that being 51 he is fully able to slip along the narrow slot between the instrumentarium, he even stepped aside towards the audience and sat at the edge of the stage. An enigmatic controversial artist let us know himself as a simple kind man.

Standing ovation received three times speaks for itself. The encore started perversely: When the dancing Baby Dee came back behind the piano, Tibet made fun that she (he?) always steals his own applause, thus he decided to punish her with a tricky song to sing. With a solo piano accompaniment she performed the song… "Be Optimistic" by Shirley Temple … but to everyone’s joy and fun, she slightly changed the lyrics adding there "smile you grumpy little gothic faggot!"… The band must do their best to get rid of the dark gothic label that was tagged to them in the past, which was anyway corroborated by the vocalist’s comment.

I’m very happy that Current didn’t let me down and I could experience this very professional, lyrical show, skilfully balanced with regard to dynamics, textual level poetically wickered with vocal friskiness amongst nostalgic sounds of the evening.