Love and Rockets performing in Portland, Oregon, May 27, 2023
Love and Rockets broke barriers. They rose from the goth-rock ashes of Bauhaus to renounce the darkness of a musical genre that they founded. They were among the first bands to pave a path from College to Modern Rock, AOR and CHR radio formats. At their commercial peak they were performing in arenas and stadiums with the likes of Jane’s Addiction and the Cure.
Now for the first time in 15 years, the trio of Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins are reunited and performing with the same vivacity and swagger of their younger years. In Portland’s Roseland Ballroom, on May 27, 2023, they took to the stage as a projected image of the sun rose above planet Earth, as though it was a new day and fresh beginning for Love and Rockets. They opened on a dreamy note with “I Feel Speed,” a trippy ode to Ash’s love of a motorcycle and an open highway.
Psychedelia and experimental art-rock are hallmarks of the Love and Rockets sound but so are big hooks and lingering melodies, and they quickly switched into that gear with a rousing version of “No Big Deal.” Haskins is a faultless human drum machine, pounding out a precision industrial beat that transforms this bouncy alt-pop song into something much harder.
“Kundalini Express,” is Love and Rockets at their snarly best. Ash offers up one of his most inspired guitar riffs while J and Haskins punch out a chugging rhythm accentuated by a clickety-clack drum fill as the Express Kundalini rambles down the track. Another hallmark of the Love and Rockets sound are the avant-garde vocal arrangements that Ash and J employ on many of their songs. Here they bounce back and forth on lead and harmony vocals, joining together for a refrain of “Sympathy for the Devil”-style “woo-woos,” echoing a whistling train. Punctuating the intense performance is an explosion of lighting and visual effects that continued throughout the rest of the show.
“Haunted When the Minutes Drag” is a hypnotic jewel from the band’s first album, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, that first established the lighter and more melodic style that separated Love and Rockets from their first band, Bauhaus (with Peter Murphy). J and Ash created a mesmerizing vocal trance while Haskins provided a fast rhythm with a lighter touch and a triggered sound that was somewhat like a hammer strike on the lid of a trash can.
Midway through the set the band performed two of its biggest radio and MTV hits. The audience sang along with J on “No New Tale to Tell,” the track from the band’s third album, Earth*Sun*Moon, that rose out of college radio to dominate Modern Rock and AOR radio stations; and swayed along with Ash on “So Alive,” the oh-so-sexy single that topped the charts in 1989 and, ironically, signaled the beginning of the end for Love and Rockets.
The band closed its set with a fast and furious performance of “Yin and Yang (The Flower Pot Man),” a song in which everything seems faster than everything else. A four-song encore included their edgy version of the Temptations,’ “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today),” the single that served as the introduction of the band’s new direction.
From 1985 to 1989, Love and Rockets released four albums. They stayed true to themselves and pushed the boundaries of their art in an exploration of glam, psychedelia, folk, dance, punk, industrial, R&B, electronica and blues music. At the height of their success they took a five-year hiatus. By the time their fifth album, Hot Trip to Heaven, was released, their “So Alive” fans had moved on and Love and Rockets were playing again to the cult of fans that were there from the beginning—and who came out again tonight to see the return of this pioneering and seminal band.
The tour coincides with the rollout of the band’s Beggars Banquet catalog on vinyl, remastered by Sean McGee at Abbey Road studios. Tickets are available here.
Love and Rockets, Portland, OR, May 27, 2023 Setlist
1. I Feel Speed
2. No Big Deal
3. Kundalini Express
4. The Dog-End of A Day Gone By
5. Judgement Day
6. Haunted When The Minutes Drag
7. An American Dream
8. No New Tale to Tell
9. So Alive
10. Deep Deep Down
11. My Dark Twin
12. The Light
13. Mirror People
14. Yin And Yang (The Flower Pot Man)
Encore
1. Holiday On The Moon
2. Love Me
3. Ball Of Confusion
4. Sweet F.A.
Related: Our review of a 2022 Bauhaus concert
2 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationI probably shouldn’t have read this article as I like to be surprised when I see a band, and not know the setlist ahead of time. But in this case, I HAD to know if they still have that ol’ magic since I will be seeing them in NYC next week. Haven’t seen them since their ’96 tour which was amazing, so I am ridiculously excited to be seeing them again since we all thought it would never happen. Thanks for the cool write-up.
You will NOT be disappointed!!
Saw them resurrected at Cruel World, and they ROCKED once again!