So, it was that I bought a (modestly priced, another advantage!) ticket to see two tribute bands (which turned out to be a little less than two, more in a bit) at the Boiler Room in Guildford.
The bands were "Siouxsie and the Budgiees" and "The Cureheads" (tributes to the Banshees and Cure, respectively.
When I arrived at the Boiler Room, I was a little surprised to see a notice saying the event was sold out, but there seemed to be a lot of students in town and it was a Friday evening. Inside, though there were few people at 7:40, so I wandered into the garden and waited for a while.
I came back in a little before 8 and bought myself a pint of Guiness (at an eye-watering £8 - I know it helps support the venue, but bloody hell, that's expensive!) and found myself at the front of the crowd in the still quite empty venue.
Around 8, the band appeared. A couple of middle aged blokes (Phil and Nigel) on guitar and bass, a young drummer (whose name I didn't catch) and a woman, Ceri (probably of similar age to the guitarists, but it was hard to be sure in all the makeup and the wig - She went for an early Siouxsie look!).
They started with Israel, a hit, of course, and mostly played well know Banshee's songs, the musical sound was spot on, sounding exactly as they were played in period, but for me, Ceri's voice just missed sounding right. She can certainly sing, but she didn't sound like Siouxsie to me.
That said, it's hard to replicate a distinctive vocal sound and the songs were great to listen to (the sound was excellent, ever word was audible in the mix, which is rarely the case even for supposedly top flight acts) and everyone was undoubtedly having a good time, despite the heat, me included.
I can't recall the full setlist (and am yet to find one even for another recent gig), but they played Happy House, Christine, Arabian Knights, Wheels On Fire, Hong Kong Garden and other hits, all of which received loud applause and rightly so.
There wasn't an encore (I noticed "Dear Prudence" at the bottom of the setlist on the stage floor, so I guess they ran out of time - There was a bit of a delay with a drum kit malfunction), but after a break, about 9:15, the guitarist, drummer and bassist from the Budgiees appeared! Clearly, there was a degree (!) of overlap in these two bands.
For a while, I wondered if (in all the Robert Smith makeup), we might have Ceri back, but it was a different singer, Rabbit Schmidt (according to Wikipedia!).
I'd been impressed with the band's accuracy of Banshees sound, so it was great to hear that they sounded just as accurate playing The Cure tracks.
Of course, for talented musicians, the difficult bit of being a tribute band is getting the vocal sound to sound like the original and they definitely did this better than Ceri had managed, at least to my ears.
I have to be honest and say that I'm not a hardcore Cure fan and there were a lot of songs I didn't recognise at all, but they were (mostly) enjoyable and all performed excellently. The singer did quip a few times that if you'd come with a 'mad Cure fan', you'd recognise the next song.
The ones I was more familiar with included Lullaby, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Let's Go to Bed and the twon in the encore, Friday I'm In Love and Boys Don't Cry.
The familiar songs were great and sounded very much like the originals to me, allowing for them being played live.
Overall, it had been a great night. Both bands (or versions of the band) were excellent musicians and they performed the tracks with skill and energy, rewarded by a packed house of enthusiastic gig-goers of very mixed ages (some were around when these bands were the new kids on the block, but some, like 3 probably teenage girls in goth getup in front of me, were definitely not even a twinkle in their parent's eyes in the early 1980s).
It was very hot (not quite as bad as when I'd seen The Beat a couple of years before, but I don't think I'd sweated as much since then!), but I'd only ventured away from the front of the packed crowd after the Cureheads main set finished and went home very happy with my night out.
A great night out for anyone who likes Siouxsie and the Banshees or The Cure.
Setlist:
Siouxsie and the Budgiees
TBC
The Cureheads - From another gig, but close
Plainsong
Pictures of You
Play For Today
A Strange Day
Torture
A Night Like This
Push
Lullaby
The Walk
Let's Go to Bed
Last Dance
Kyoto Song
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
A Forest
Encore:
Friday I'm in Love
Boys Don't Cry