Hemel Hempstead Pavilion

I'D NEVER considered the possibility of any affection existing between myself and Bauhaus until I saw them on Top Of The Pops, trashing their guitars and leaping at the dancers.

Such an act! Such a manoeuvre! One of those momentary but resonant gestures that separates the genuine outsiders from the workaday Johnnies of pop pulpdom.

Bauhaus, with that ridiculous but effective action, briefly flashed a glimpse of a thoroughly subversive underbelly. In this system, Bauhaus are a different kind of poison.

Bauhaus have become one of pop music's most elegant and cerebral shams. Live, they build from the epic melodrama of a darkened stage and a rusty downward guitar chord progression (or regression), a start which however facile in form stimulates a rush of anticipation in the audience, an adrenaline fed craving for the succession of slow-burning climaxes which are to follow.

To continue reading this article and to discover many more (over 140,000 words-worth!), purchase Mick Sinclair’s Adjusting the Stars: Music journalism from post-punk London.