The Psychedelic Furs/Anja Huwe (Xmal Deutschland) – Leeds Stylus 25/10 (Words and pictures by Diamond Dave)

In their recent US Tour, The Psychedelic Furs took Gary Numan out as their support and in recent tours of the UK we have seen the likes of Wendy James and Jah Wobble added to some wonderful bills. Anja Huwe, known from Xmal Deutschland is here to entertain this Yorkshire crowd. It’s an interesting performance, reminiscent of a harder version of Garbage at times. It is a dark listen with Anja pacing the stage, looking the front row in the eye in a wonderfully unsettling way.

The Psychedelic Furs in just two years will be celebrating their 50^th Year as a band. With two brothers, Richard Butler on vocals and his bass playing brother Tim the constant heartbeat of this band who have seen a  great deal of success on both sides of the  Atlantic since their self titled debut came out in 1980. All the way through the performance the one thing that is constantly going through my mind is whatever fitness regime Richard Butler has been following, we should all aspire to it. He is as mobile and strong, both physically and vocally, as a man half his age.

Heaven opens a set which is not only full of the hits but also songs from their 2020 album ‘Made Of Rain’ (which featured on The DD Show Top 20 Albums Of The Year show). Songs such as Wrong Train and The Boy Who Invented Rock And Roll and No One fit perfectly with the older songs. The Psychedelic Furs (in a similar way to Simple Minds And U2) are a band who don’t sound dated and they seem to be a constantly evolving thing. As a performer, Richard Butler has this wonderful theatrical delivery, gesticulating as much with his hands which communicate nearly as much as his voice, similar in many ways to Jarvis Cocker from Pulp and he has this whole of this Yorkshire crowd in the palm of his hands.

In My Head and Run And Run have the crowd dancing and singing every single word at the very top of their voices with Tim Butler’s bass providing a groove that is so wonderfully backed up by drummer Zach Alford (who celebrated his birthday at the previous gig). In many ways Alford is the band’s secret weapon with a wonderful mix of groove and power. Older tracks like Until She Comes and Heartbreak Beat sound immense with the former obviously proving too much for one punter who has fainted, Richard passing water down in to the pit (and proving he is a jolly decent chap) yet the band barely miss a beat.

I try not to be too obvious when writing a review but The Psychedelic Furs do have something that many other bands do not, and that is a song that is not only a huge hit for the band but can sum up a whole period of their career, and for The Psychedelic Furs, Pretty In Pink is that song. When a song is able to immediately transport you back to a specific time of your life, it is a special piece of music. Yes OK, this young Northern Irish rocker was totally in love with Molly Ringwald after seeing the film that shares it’s title (and probably still is to be honest). But that song is one of the great songs from a decade that in many ways was the last of truly wonderful pop music before Stock, Aitkin and Waterman started making pop stars out of soap actors….but hey maybe it’s just me.

The encore consists of two songs with It Goes On (from Talk Talk Talk) and an epic India (from their debut self titled album) and I have to say that from listening to my fellow punters on the way out, I am not the only person who was totally blown away tonight. And one thing is for sure, I know it took me a mere forty seven years in to their career for me to get to see them but I sincerely hope it is not too long before I get the opportunity to see them again (well cheekily I know I am seeing them in Amsterdam as the tour heads to Europe next week!)