New Cross, London :: October 12, 1991

Twenty short years ago...

LUSH takes to the stage at the New Cross Venue in London, the last stop of the four-nighter London gig during their Black Spring tour. The accompanying acts are Shelleyann Orphan an Heide Berry.

And now, for a limited time only (I always wanted to say that), I'm offering my personal commemorative tour poster for the Lush Over London blitz as a free download to you, the reader. I hope you'll enjoy it as you listen to your favorite band! Incidentally the background of photo used is by Joe Dilworth of Time Out magazine, and shows Lush outside Emma's old home, Trellick Tower.

Now, back to show in New Cross...

Thanks to some reader-submitted material at Light From A Dead Star we know that a bootleg tape recording of the show was issued. We have the set list (below) and we also know that various indie heads of state (Boris Williams - drummer for The Cure, Debbie Smith - guitarist for Curve) were in the audience.

LUSH - 12.10.91
SETLIST

• Stray
• Bitter
• Breeze
• Laura
• God's Gift
• Scarlet
• Ocean
• Nothing Natural
• For Love
• Covert
• De-Luxe
• Second Sight
• Downer
• Baby Talk
• Monochrome
• Sweetness & Light

Mile End, London :: October 11, 1991

Twenty short years ago...

Lush at QMC, October 11, 1991, photos by Alastair Indge of Select

LUSH plays Mile End, London at Queens Mary College, the third and eastern leg in their North-South-East-West four-nighter tour of London, part of the Black Spring tour. They are joined by bands Spirea X and Rockinbirds.

A review in Select magazine declares that "Right from the first song the harmonies were dead centre and the guitars were in your bedroom making tracks for your pillow. Hey! They can play!" in reference to how far they had improved and tightened up as a live band.

On the new "exciting" songs (just released on the Black Spring ep and their up-coming first full-length album) the reviewer adds "...the excellence of those songs proves that The Year of Living Drunkenly was not entirely wasted." No explanation needed for that reference ;)

According to Neil of Neil's Lush Video Page, a video recording was made of the show. He has listed the night's set list as follows:


LUSH - 11.10.1991
SETLIST

• Stray
• Bitter
• Breeze
• Laura
• God's Gift
• Scarlet
• Ocean
• Nothing Natural
• For Love
• Covert
• De-Luxe
• Downer
• Sweetness And Light
• Monochrome
• Leaves Me Cold

DURATION - 55 MINUTES


PS. I always especially love pics of Miki with her Gibson ES-335 Sunburst, like the shot above. Besides the obvious influence it imparted to Lush's sound - the instrument has a sweet, acoustic tone, and is one of the most versatile guitars you can find - it's perhaps the prettiest axe of the 12-string arsenal.

"Show Us" - 1994 Reading Festival

New stuff from a great Lush site!


Lush's complete live performance recorded 26th, August 1994 at the three-day Reading Festival is now available for download at lushlive.com. The recording is from the hard to find Italian import/bootleg disc – the memorably titled "Show Us Your Tits." And being a bootlegged live recording, free downloading should not present a copyright issue.

The files are located in the Audio section. They are in .FLAC format, this is a lossless format that preserves the original sound quality. When you "unflac" them they'll be .wav files. This is done to save space. You need a program called FLAC which is free, and can be downloaded here.

Thanks Eric!!


'Show Us Your Tits'
LABEL: Insect (Italy)
RECORDED: 26th, August 1994 - Reading Festival - England

TRACKLIST:
1 Introduction
2 Blackout
3 Stardust
4 For Love
5 Lit Up
6 Lit Up (Take 2)
7 Kiss Chase
8 Desire Lines
9 Lovelife
10 Hypocrite
11 Downer
12 Undertown
13 De-Luxe
14 Leaves Me Cold
15 Sweetness & Light

TIME: 60 minutes

Additional sleeve artwork:

back insert

inner sleeve fold-out

On a side note, I imagine that "Show Us Your Lemons" would have made a somewhat Lush-ier title for this famous bootleg ...

Sorry, I couldn't resist ;)

New Cross :: March 15, 1991

Twenty years ago...

Lush plays at The Venue, New Cross, London, along with Blur and Moose.

There was a bootleg video recording made of this gig. And through the miracle of internet technology, you can witness a video download courtesy of Kevin over at The Sound of Indie:

Lush – Thoughtforms (Live Video)

The Venue
Newcross, London, UK
3.15.91

SETLIST:
1 Bitter
2 Breeze
3 Take
4 Scarlet
5 Ocean
6 Monochrome
7 Thoughtforms
8 Tiny Smiles
9 Downer
10 Covert
11 De-Luxe
12 Baby Talk
13 Etheriel
14 Sweetness And Light


And finally...
This review of the event by Andy Peart was published in the March 23 edition of an unknown publication:

The Early Lush Demos :: 1988, '89

Pretend that you just happened to lay your hands on a copy of the original demo tapes from Lush. Actually you don't have to, because it's provided to you right here and now, free for the taking. You can d/l all of the demo tracks (found on another blog) here: The Early Lush Demos :: 1998, '99 - The dates as listed on the bootleg for the demos obviously are incorrect. This should be dated '1988,'89'.

Note! This bootleg includes a track attributed simply as "Emma Vocals" (demo II). Emma emphatically refutes that the vocals are her's in a comment made on the YouTube video, and states that this is not a Lush song. Listen to the track yourself, "Emma Vocals" sounds oddly out of place compared to the other tracks. I don't believe this is a demo by Lush at all.

Album: Early Demos
Release: Unreleased
Label: N/A

TRACKLIST
Demo I
(recorded between March-October 1988 w/ Meriel Barham, Emma, Miki, Steve and Chris)

1. Grotesque (band's title is "Female Hybrid" see the March 1 post )
2. Truth Or Fiction
3. Skin
4. Sunbathing

After they cut the above four-song demo, Meriel left the band to join the Pale Saints.

Demo II
(first two tracks likely recorded in early 1989, w/ Miki, Emma, Steve and Chris)

1. Etheriel
2. Second Site (Second Sight)
[3. Emma Vocals] (according to Emma herself, this is NOT Emma singing and should not be considered as a recording made by Lush!)

Lush sent this second demo tape off to 4AD, One Little Indian, Rough Trade and Mute, before heading off on a mini-tour with House Of Love in May 1989.

Lush/J&MC Lollapalooza '92

Time to get back to that list of bootlegs I'd started...

"Lollapalooza '92 - Lush/Jesus & Mary Chain" isn't quite a bootleg, it's an actual production quality cd, but neither is it an official Lush release either. For that reason it's grouped along with the usual bootlegs.

This cd was also offered as a three-disc set including Pearl Jam, Sound Garden?.... well, you get the general idea. This one's still a comparatively common find to obtain online.

As far as the recording goes, the note on the back of the jewel case sums it up: "We apologize for the fact that this recording is not up to the standards of other KTS recordings..."

I wouldn't consider this as being ranked among the best myself. The sound quality is good, but the comments of the crowd are often more clearly audible than what's coming from the stage. And some of it not exactly flattering. The band plays a clean, tight set though the majority of the audience were not there to see Lush, but for Pearl Jam which immediately followed after. They're aware that they're facing a hostile audience, which lingers over the performance (at least it seems like it does, compared to others I've heard). Remember, up to this time Lollapalooza was among the biggest events that Lush had played, it would have been both thrilling and terrifying at the same time to have been in the spot they were placed into.

With that said, there were much better performances from Lush during the Lollapalooza tour. These were obviously overlooked by KTS in its eagerness to only cash-in on the Pearl Jam-Jarheads band wagon.

Sorry! Did I let that slip-in? But I've never had any use whatsoever for pretentious musicians (and their followers) of any genre. Can you tell? :)


Recorded live in Miami, Florida August 22, 1992.
Produced by KTS, Italy, released 1992
18 tracks evenly split

SETLIST:
1 Stray/Bitter
2 Nothing Natural
3 For Love
4 Superblast!
5 Covert/ De-Luxe
6 Downer
7 Sweetness and Light
8 New Song (*the unidentified track is 'Starlust')
9 Leaves Me Cold

- the remaining 9 tracks are of the Jesus & Mary Chain, which are not too shabby by the way.

Live 1990 in Surloire, France from 'Sparky The High Voltage Wire'

From the 7" Sparky The High Voltage Wire. Live at St. Sebastian 2/1/1990 in Surloire, France.

"Lush: Sweetness and Light" (live) Vancouver, 1996

Lush: Sweetness and Light
Live at the Commodore Ballroom. Vancouver, Canada, April 11, 1996

Unofficial live recording. Offered as an audio CDr. I'm not sure when this was first released, but I found my copy a couple years back. There's audience noise and all but it's not too distracting. The recording quality is okay to good, but the band's performance is excellent. I rate this as one of my favorites. Miki belts out a jagged-edge and Emma, Phil and Chris piledrive away a powerful version of 'De-Luxe' which continues to build to "Hypocrite." Yes, there's sweetness and light... along with a lot of raw rock.

PLAYLIST
1 Heavenly Nobodies
2 The Childcatcher
3 Lovelife
4 500
5 Single Girl
6 Kiss Chase
7 De-Luxe
8 Light from a Dead Star
9 Undertow
10 Hypocrite
11 Runaway
12 Sweetness and Light
13 Ladykillers
14 Last Night
15 Demystification

"Complete Lush" Video - September 1996

Today would be Chris's 40th birthday.

Let's remember back ten years ago... Thanks to a certan bootleg, we can do just that.

The "Complete Lush" video is an unofficial recording shot at San Francisco, California, September 7, 1996 (Chris's 30th birthday).

The video is shot from the audience, using a tripod held recorder. There is no editing, and is shot straight through as it happened from start to finish. The highlight from this is the surprise appearence by Elvis and a female Elvis counterpart in honor of Chris's birthday, complete with a rendition of "Viva Las Vegas." Chris good-naturedly accepts the unexpected limelight. Miki makes a few remarks to the crowd: Chris "can do whatever he likes, it's his ***ing birthday!" and when spectators begin crowd surfing/stage diving.

After the show we get a brief glimpse of the band, mainly Miki, being escorted under the cover of darkness to a waiting car.

The remainder of this video consists of a sampling (but not all) of Lush's music videos and a couple interviews taped from various MTV broadcasts (120 Minutes, Alternative Nation, etc.).

Video quality is as to be expected. As far as I know this was only made available in VHS format when I got my copy a year or so ago.

"Complete Lush" - September 1996
TRACKLIST
1 Heavenly Nobodies
2 The Child Catcher
3 Lit-Up
4 500 (Shake Baby Shake)
5 Single Girl
6 Downer
7 Kiss Chase
8 De-Luxe
9 Light from a Dead Star
10 Last Night
11 Hypocrite
12 Runaway
13 For Love
14 Ladykillers
15 (Elvis sings Happy Birthday)
16 Ciao
17 Sweetness and Light
DURATION : ?

VIDEO COMPILATION
1 Interview Lollapalooza
2 De-Luxe (first version)
3 De-Luxe (second version)
4 For Love
5 Nothing Natural
6 Superblast!
7 Hypocrite
8 Ladykillers
9 Interview MTV/120 Minutes (Miki and Emma)
10 Ladykillers (live)
11 Sweetness and Light (live)