Bauhaus Zitadelle Berlin 22nd August 2022

 

For my sins, I use Spotify. I appreciate that they do artists very few favours and with that knowledge, I do try to support the artists that I like by seeing them live and buying as much music in physical form as possible, although the price of vinyl places something of a cap on that! Anyway, through Spotify it is clear what I have been listening to throughout 2025 and there's quite a bit of goth stuff in there!! What's going on? To be fair, I have been rather selective in my 'goth' selections as some of it I still find a little ludicrous. The Sisters of Mercy I can take in small quantities, a Fields of the Nephilim gig is one of the few that I have walked out of and well, Alien Sex Fiend.... I have never gone there.

However, I have played a lot of the March Violets, Xmal Deutschland and this bloke, the troubled Mr Murphy, in particular his new album 'Silver Shade'. Having purchased the latest issue of 'Vive Le Rock' today I feel a little vindicated in my listening choices given the fact that the aforementioned 'Silver Shade' was selected to be number 2 in their listing of best albums of 2025 (Conflict attained the No.1 position).

To my understanding Pete Murphy has had another difficult year on a personal level and that resulted in him pulling out of the summer's 'Forever Now' post-punk festival. For that reason, this gig from the latest Bauhaus reformation in 2022 is the most current material that I can find (if you can call 40 year old material current). Periodically, Bauhaus in some form or other resurfaces for gigs. In 2019 Murphy teamed up with David J to mark the band's 40th anniversary. 2022 saw dates for which all four members of the band left the bell tower for the stage.

Of all the bands that fell under the bat's wing of 'goth', I think Bauhaus did it best (and they didn't even come from Leeds!), but how can you go wrong when your front man resembles the mutant offspring of The Thin White Duke and Nosferatu.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-o9k2k0aGRO

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-DbXSD9SQvm

Bauhaus Cruel World Festival Rose Bowl Pasadena 14th May 2022

'The bats have left the bell tower

The victims have been bled.'

I cannot imagine a more incongruous paring than Northampton's champions of the Undead, Bauhaus, and the Southern Californian sun, but here they were in 2022 performing at the Cruel World Festival in the city of Pasadena. Actually, I think that all most if not all of the members of Bauhaus are US exiles. Pete Murphy is there I believe and the other three I think decamped when it was apparent that Love & Rockets were enjoying significantly greater success in the US than in the UK.

I think that this is the band's third reunion, first in 1998 (the only time that I saw them), then 2006 and finally 2021. They played Alexandra Palace in October of 2021. They are still sounding great I think, even in a festival setting.

I love everything that they have done, but I am especially fond of 'Mask'. As for 'Bela Lugosi's Dead', that is just a timeless track (you could say immortal!).

Just take a look at that line up! A great day culminating with Bauhaus.... well I wouldn't stick around for Morrissey!

With thanks to the original Dime uploader.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-YyM42wSzAl

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-rZpgezqaT6

Bauhaus Tiffany's Leeds 25th April 1982

 

Another request from an attendee of this appearance by Bauhaus at Tiffany's in Leeds. Personally I love Bauhaus... absurdly pretentious but with a hidden sense humour. Who would have given credit to the fact that 'Spy In The Cab' is about something as mundane as a lorry's tachograph!

Of that post punk/goth scene they stood a bat's wingspan apart from their competition.

Thanks to Edge from 101guitars for the download.

Sounds like there could have been a bit of an issue with heavy handed bouncers on the night.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-igZIViSulu

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-qtrlEraXAP

01. Intro/Party of The First Part
02. Dark Entries
03. In The Flat Field
04. Silent Hedges
05. In Fear of Fear
06. Of Lillies and Remains
07. Rosegarden Funeral of Sores
08. The Three Shadows Part II
09. Terror Couple Kill Colonel
10. Spirit
11. Kick In The Eye
12. Hollow Hills
13. Stigmata Martyr
14. Hair of the Dog
15. Bela Lugosi's Dead

20 From '81 (3) Bauhaus The Nite Club Edinburgh 3rd September 1981

 

Ah, the undead of Northampton. Not everybody's cup of tea but I love them. Stuck in a twilight zone occupied by David Bowie and The Damned, Bauhaus carved a niche in the market for sure. Forget the Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus were the ultimate band of the goth genre. The band were something of an enigma. On the face of it they took themselves very seriously indeed. They had a penchant for pretention.... a great example of this can be found on the sleeve notes to their 1981 album 'Mask'. Not their own words, but those of avant garde poet Brilburn Logue (a.k.a. Alan Moore, comic book writer, poet and fellow resident of Northampton):

'This is for when the radio is broken and crackles like uranium orchids

This is for when the fohn-wind rattles the telegraph wires like a handful of bones

This is for when dream ambulances skitter through the streets at midnight

This is for when you get caught in a sleep-riot and the sky is out of order

This is for when your sex is full of voodoo

This is for when your clothes are imaginary

This is for when your flesh creeps and never comes back.'

What's that all about then?

On the other hand there are the occasional glimpses of humour. The sinister sounding 'Spy in the Cab' is allegedly a song about tachographs that record the activity of long-distance lorry drivers. 

'Hidden in the dashboard

The unseen mechanized eye

Under surveillance

The road is full of cats eyes

It's sick function to pry

The spy in the cab.'

I caught the tail end of the band, the singles 'Ziggy Stardust' and 'She's in Parties' were both big in my world. In fact at the time I used to boldly told friends that the Bauhaus version of 'Ziggy' was superior to the original.... a view that I have had the sense to abandon in the years that followed!

I saw then just the once in 1998 at Brixton Academy. In doing so I caused a long weekend holiday with friends to be cancelled, such was my desire to see Mr Murphy and the boys!

And they are back.... having played an extortionately expensive gig at Alexander Palace some months ago, some new material 'Drink The New Wine' and another Brixton gig is in the offing.

That's the now, here's the then. From Edinburgh in September 1981...

Pete Murphy (Bauhaus)

The Nite Club, Edinburgh

3rd September 1981

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-BdXqVrwhSC

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-fUU3Owmd0x

01. Intro / Passion Of Lovers

02. In The Flat Field

03. Terror Couple Kill Colonel

04. Dancing

05. Spy In The Cab

06. Kick In The Eye

07. Satori

08. Of Lillies And Remains

09. Hair Of The Dog

10. Hollow Hills

11. Stigmata Martyr

12. Dark Entries

13. Bela Lugosi's Dead

Bauhaus Civic Hall Guildford 18th October 1982

Those men of Northampton with the razor sharp cheekbones have had a mention today in connection with The Damned's cover of 'Bela Lugosi'. Here they are in their own right in Guildford in 1982.

MP3 (as received): https://we.tl/t-TlGOii5aEt

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-isnMd1EbX7

20 From '80 (17) Bauhaus SO36 Club Berlin 26th November 1980

Bauhaus were a strange band but typified well how, in the wake of punk, ideas got mixed and matched to produce something entirely new. For example, take elements of Bowie in his 'Thin White Duke' period, throw in a dash of Dave Vanian, run the mixture through a mangle and the result.... Pete Murphy.

I love Bauhaus and I have 95% of their stuff, however even so they were a band who could be rightly considered to take themselves a bit too seriously! Lyrically, they were capable of producing what could be described as pretentious twaddle!

'In the marbled reception hall I received a three band gold ring, from Mark. A token of esteem. Running through ghost closet locker rooms, to hide from Peter, who has fallen to the old cold stone floor, wheezing and emitting a seemingly endless flow of ectoplasmic white goo from ears and mouth. A wind rushes through the hall, whistles as it breezes through the narrow slits in the green locker doors. I hide in one of these, number thirteen'.

 

'Of Lillies and Remains' Bauhaus 1981

 

 

 

See what I mean!

 

On the other hand, Bauhaus were not without humour. The darkly dramatic 'A Spy In The Cab' when broken down is about a subject as mundane as a vehicle tachograph! Furthermore, when talking to a friend recently, who many moons ago had been in a band who supported Magazine and Bauhaus, he described the Northampton boys as being extremely gracious, even to the extent of tuning their guitars for them.

 

 

So here you have a soundboard recording from an early set from Berlin.

 

 

FLAC: https://rapidshare.com/files/2793260886/bauhaus1180FLAC.zip

 

MP3: https://rapidshare.com/files/1466790508/bauhaus1180MP3.zip

 

Artwork: https://rapidshare.com/files/4031842006/bauhaus1180AW.zip

 

Bauhaus were certainly unique and would have adequately served the punk/new wave cause even if their recording career started and stopped with 'Bela Lugosi's Dead'.

'Undead! Undead!'

'Bela Lugosi's Dead'

Bauhaus

Riverside 1982