There’s probably a rule against writing a lede in advance. Well, we’re a bit low on editors here and the words spun up before Cold Cave’s Union Transfer gig still stand – but we’ll get to that later.
What shone in monochrome from the front row ties nicely into that first draft introduction, however: Cold Cave and the vision/passion Wesley Eisold has for presentation is mesmerizing. All bony wrist and sweaty cheek bone, pleather and sunglasses, flowing frocks and turtlenecks. It’s Wake, 101 and/or Forever Remain… take your pick on the classic live presentation of the dark arts.
Cold Cave, the dancing-through-pain darlings of the black-clad masses, has attained international festival-filling heights for good reason: it’s authentic. Having shared a stage (or soon to) with everyone from Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order to The Cult, Depeche Mode, Ministry, Gary Numan and The Jesus and Mary Chain, the student that has long been at the head of this class will one day very, very soon be the master.
Back in Eisold’s former home of Philadelphia – where he squatted, sold books and birthed this band “out of necessity” – Cold Cave and company put on a passionate gig for a strong turn-out crowd. Eisold made mention of his roots here and we paid it back as best one can from the pulpit.
Shone in Monochrome
The current iteration of the group is far beyond the bedsit beep-boops of at-home programming. A fully-fleshed live band, hammering away under the strobes and smoke, is a top-billed act not to be missed. This show, the fourth notch in my bedpost, opens doors to the past in two ways.
- One: the set list of the Sept. 20, 2023 gig was a career-spanning view of where Eisold’s act (and life) has been, is at, and will go. It’s this depth that shows something truly special has always been there. There’s the accessible synth-pop of 2009’s “Life Magazine” from Love Comes Close, sung at Union Transfer by wife Amy Lee, to 2021’s goth-sneer grandiose of “Prayer from Nowhere.”
- Two, which we alluded to earlier: Eisold doesn’t try to hide his heroes. Since so many of them have invited the group to tour with them, he taps the same vein as the ‘80s greats with a knowing nod mixed with years of his own twists and tales to tell.
Absolute front row mayhem from a “The Great Pan is Dead” encore at Underground Arts in 2017, all stage invasions and crowd punches paying tribute to Eisold’s hardcore roots, somehow pairs well with Wednesday night’s disaffected smokescreens and strobe lights. The band has always pounded new ground and with no way back to the Royal Albert Hall, the Rose Bowl nor the Town & Country Club, a Cold Cave gig has consistently offered an “I was there to witness it” sense of significance. Watch in real-time as the heir apparent seals the deal.
I’ve Seen the Future…
This brings us, by no accident, to the opening I wrote just prior the show. So here’s my premonition: Some day in the not-so-distant future, some snot-nosed kid is going to say, “Wow – you saw Cold Cave in 2012? That’s so cool.”
I believe this to be true because Cold Cave has secured its spot in the history books, and I’m currently that snot-nosed kid bothering people in paper-thin tour t-shirts with questions about seeing [insert alternative band here] in the year 198[insert any number 0-9]. In fact, here’s 10,000 words of my pestering about history books and long-gone gigs.
To think that an old roommate and I hemmed and hawed a decade ago over tickets, later making good on the promise and BoltBus-ing it up to Webster Hall in New York City, is frankly frightening. I sent him a picture from the stage on Wednesday night and for a second, it was the chaos of 2013 again. Or was it a sweaty subterranean show in winter 2017? Or, through the carefully crafted assault on your sound and vision, was it a sold-out stadium in 1986?
Why worry? I’ve already seen the future, and it’s no place for me.
Greg Adomaitis 