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(More customer reviews)I used to have Siouxsie's name inscribed on my pencil-case. But after seeing her live in 83 in the Wellington Town Hall, with Robert Smith on guitar, I moved the inscription to my heart. (Mainly for the music, but there was also the way she nearly dented some particularly obnoxious audience members, shaven-headed boot-wearers who admired Hitler, with a deft swing of the microphone stand, which in those primitive days had a base made of concrete. All without missing a note: ahhh, Siouxsie...)
I'm a fan. I still list "Spellbound" somewhere in my top 20 songs, and I still have moods where only the thunder of the Banshees and Siouxsie in full cry will really do. I've even tried to persuade people that the Cure were the second best band that Robert Smith played guitar in. (I usually lose that argument, but win the fall-back position that the Banshees' _Nocturne_ is the best album he ever played on.)
So I bought the "Seven Year Itch" concert DVD the moment I saw it, expecting a nice dark romantic energy transfusion. And I got a serious disappointment instead.
The first five or so songs are performed in a sort of monotone muttering, not only by Siouxsie herself, who seems to have spent the last 10 years smoking and coughing, but also by the Banshees. But those first songs were never my favourites anyway, so my expectations lifted again when Siouxsie announced "Happy House". "Happy House" always had a nice line in obsessive incantatory power. But as performed by the new Siouxsie, it doesn't even have a tune any more, let alone any power. After that, "Christine" came and went without even conjuring up a ghost, a faded wisp, of the glorious song that it ought to be. More muttering from Siouxsie, more off-hand rumbling from the Banshees. And then I took the DVD off, since this was too damn depressing for words.
A few days later I tried "Spellbound", on the theory that the song is damn near indestructible, and surely it would galvanise even this batch of Banshees into some sort of life.
Tester's report: "Spellbound" not indestructible. Banshees still shambolical. Siouxsie still lost her voice.
So. As an irrationally passionate Siouxsie and the Banshees fan, I'm here to warn you that this hideous travesty is not only awful in its own right, but it can have a sort of reverse halo effect, seriously tarnishing the memory of some great music. The cure, after hearing as much of this as you can stand, is to play _Nocturne_, the Banshees' 1983 live album, which is all the proof you need that the Banshees were a brilliant live band with an awe-inspiring catalogue of songs.
Buy _Nocturne_ instead, if you don't already have it; it's virtually a best-of, up to 1983, with versions that often improve on the studio originals. But whatever you do, don't succumb to _the Seven Year Itch_.
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