So Furs, so good

THE Psychedelic Furs weren’t a goth band, were they?

Yet the goth army was out in force, all corsets and lacquer and jet-black eyeliner for Richard Butler’s revived band in last Saturday’s headline slot for the DV8Fest at the suitably dingy Duchess.

Twenty one years have passed since their last studio album, World Outside, whose two stand-outs, Until She Comes and Get A Room, failed to make the cut for a throbbing concert built around the classic, propulsive, more muscular Furs sound of their self-titled 1980 debut and 1981’s Talk Talk Talk.

In other words, the saxophone was in rampant form, courtesy of Miles Williams, who rivalled Butler as the night’s star. Butler, in sexy specs and with his sleeves pulled over his fingers, remained every inch the pin-up frontman, cool and coiled and striking Jesus-on the-cross poses in Imitation Of Christ.

His voice, the best rasp this side of Faces-era Rod Stewart, had neither aged nor withered, as gloriously affecting on the opening Into You Like A Train as on the encore of President Gas.

A softie like your reviewer may have craved the absent, pretty The Ghost In You, but Heartbeat, signature song Pretty in Pink (played as early as fourth on the set list) and Heaven were resplendent.

If Love My Way was slightly off colour, an extended Highwire Days had never sounded better, Butler stretching out the mantra, “Get smart, get scared” to maximum effect.

As the hypnotic India thudded against the Duchess walls, the Furs had given their all in a lean, dynamic, dark and graceful return far removed from so many stolid Eighties’ heritage shows.