This week, UK electronica originals Cabaret Voltaire hit Birmingham on their penultimate tour before they finally put their synthesizers into storage and call it quits this time next year. For a band that have been going (on and off) since 1973, however, they were seriously on fire – with no suggestion that they should be considering permanent retirement any time soon.
Richard H Kirk may have passed away in 2021, but Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, who had both left the fold more than 30 years ago, put on a fine show and paid tribute to their fallen comrade early in the proceedings. However, while Kirky would probably have insisted on the setlist of weird and wonderful sounds and beats that would have flummoxed even the most super of superfans, Mal and Chris decided to largely trawl Cabaret Voltaire’s heyday, for a show that spanned their magnificent 1980s’ output. So, it was with some anticipation that the audience of predominantly 50-something blokes awaited what was something of a second (or third) coming of one of the more influential groups to put down their guitars to see what they could create with strange electronic hardware long before it was fashionable to do so.
Kicking off with “24/24” and a raft of tunes from 1983’s The Crackdown album, Mal grabbed his microphone with a big, beaming smile and intoned “Eat it up and spit it out”, as his vocals were twisted and warped in real time. The rest of the crew being hunched over mountains of electronic gear that gave the impression of a cinematic recreation of the bridge of a DIY spacecraft. All while being illuminated in a dark twilight with plenty of dry ice and a towering screen that pumped out glitchy and disorientating visuals throughout the evening.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” recited a recording of beat colossus Allen Ginsberg before a low rumbling gave way to a hip-swinging groove and the band broke into “Crackdown”. From there, it was straight into the glorious and disturbing electrofunk of “Spies in the Wires” and the insistent “Just Fascination” – with Mal noting that these tunes of some 40 years ago were just as pertinent as they ever had been.
The Cabs’ main set came to an end with the Sheffield bleep of “Easy Life” and “Do Right”, which was met by a wave of cheers and whistles before the band slopped off stage for a quick breather. They were soon back, however, with the harsh electropunk of “Nag Nag Nag” that had the audience howling along and finally, the infectious, robotic groove of “Sensoria” that was introduced by a sample curtesy of the long-dead, eccentric astronomer Patrick Moore. However, even great performances must come to an end and with a “Thank you Birmingham. You’ve been fucking great”, Cabaret Voltaire left the stage having laid on an evening of pure joy to a packed venue in the Midlands.
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