I once dated a guy who kept a papier-mâché doll of Bauhaus vocalist/solo artist Peter Murphy in his closet. After discovering and abandoning their Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape years earlier, it was the impetus I needed to re-examine the band’s oeuvre and obvious cultural significance. Bauhaus’ last proper tour was in 1998, but those lucky enough to catch their Coachella set this year—where Murphy was lowered onto the stage batlike, singing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” upside down—applauded it as the weekend’s best moment.
Murphy, guitarist Daniel Ash, bassist David J, and drummer Kevin Haskins (the latter three formed Love and Rockets from the remnants of Bauhaus in 1983) aren’t unfamiliar with theatrics, but the crowd at the Paramount on Friday, Oct. 21, knew better than to set themselves up for disappointment by expecting a repeat performance. On the second date of their Near the Atmosphere tour, seeing the godfathers of Goth do an Ashlee Simpson–style jig would seemingly have satisfied the faithful awaiting Bauhaus’ entrance, as eerie classical music drifted through the room and shadows of mezzanine patrons crawled along the ceiling. “Peter’s gonna walk out like fuckin’ Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas,” one guy excitedly told his friend. “He’s gonna have that look . . . know what I mean?”
Which Murphy did—the 48-year-old’s glacier-colored eyes surveying and piercing through everyone as he entered the stage last and began “Burning From the Inside,” from their final studio album of the same name. Ash’s dirty, slashing guitar and the rhythm section’s groove surprised me—this band is funky, I thought. Murphy immediately took command of the stage and audience, vamping by reaching out to the crowd and upwards to shield himself from a beam of gold light.
Ash looked vaguely hair-metal-like in a sleeveless black shirt and black wristbands, initially wearing a mask over his eyes; David J left his sunglasses on throughout the set, resembling New Order’s Bernard Sumner at times. A dance pit immediately formed after the first rolling drumbeat of “In the Flat Field,” bodies writhing to ominous lyrics that are as far from “danceable” as most people can get: “Calmer eye flick shudder within/Assist me to walk away in sin/ Where is the string that Theseus laid?/Find me out this labyrinth place.”
Say what you will about the lyrics of their most famous song, which they performed after the second encore—”The bats have left the tower/The victims have been bled/Red velvet lines the black box/Bela Lugosi’s dead”—but if Bauhaus were doing one thing, it wasn’t catering to the lowest common denominator. As light hits the band like cracks in doors, mixing with fog machines to make walls of smoke, it’s as easy to picture a Greek tragedy as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, images masterfully conjured by a group who’ve known what they’re doing for a long time now.
