Features

It's Official!

The Dream Disciples CAN Cure Your Pain!


Paul B with a tale of two gigs and some full-on gothic rock

Dateline: Coventry, Silvers- 8th Oct 1996

Heresy Goth/Industrial Nite

Not the largest venue in the country this, and one that's always a little awkward to play. The crowd arrives early, although the rumours of a support band turn out to be untrue - and it's a good job too, as the bulk of the dancefloor is already occupied by the DD's equipment. There's just enough space for half-a-dozen medium-sized Goths to stomp back and forth to 'Alice' (no room for fancy moves, well not while the Sisters are playing... A request for Creaming Jesus gives me a little more room to express myself).

The band members are hanging round the door and the merchandise stall (aka: the table in the corner), with looks on their faces which range from nonchalance to trepidation. They are, after all, about to kick off their extensive Autumn Zombie Sluts On The Road European tour - and with their best and most successful album to support them (the storming A Cure For Pain) this should be where it all begins to go right.

The anticipation is also great in the crowd (a decent turn-out of about 40, which means Silvers is full to brimming!), most of them have heard that the gig on the following Saturday (twenty miles away at The Mercat in Birmingham) is going to be recorded and released as the Dream Disciples first live album. What’s more, anyone who turns up to the gig will get their name in the credits and a free copy of the CD!

In the end, they play for only forty minutes or so tonight - seemingly unhappy with the sound ("Some nights it happens and some nights it doesn't", mumbles Colin midway through the set) - but the response from the crowd is positive nevertheless. They play 'In Amber', 'Veins', and finish with the ever popular cover of 'Sweet Dreams', and these three alone would have been enough to satiate a crowd as pro-DD as this one! Anyway, everybody here tonight will be at The Mercat, and they've been promised a set three times as long then! Saturday looks like it could be a busy night. Talking to Sid, the guitarist, afterwards, I ask him about the shrewd incentive for Saturday’s gig: "We'd rather give everyone a free CD and have it packed, than not and have it half empty!", he smiles (as a crowd gathers around to sign up for the free information service). I'm only surprised that nobody thought of it sooner!

Dateline: Birmingham, the Mercat - 12th Oct 1996

Cafe Transylvania

Oh yes. This is what we've been waiting for - the Dream Disciples coming of age! The Mercat is as full as it's been since Rosetta played in May, even the most reluctant of revellers have crawled out from their bedsits to be here.

The wait is long, and when the band finally take the stage the crowd breaks out into spontaneous dance - almost out of relief. Colin is screaming the lyrics to 'Slowburn' at our idiotically smiling faces, and what with the OTT-makeup he’s looking pretty damned imposing tonight (although, that said, there's still something about him that will always render the DD's a kind of gothic brother to Terrorvision!). At the end of the opener the applause is like nothing I've ever heard in such a small venue, as each member of the audience tries to make themselves heard above the next (largely for the benefit of the recording).

It's easy to forget that once upon a time the Dream Disciples weren’t really that good. That they were just another bunch of pretenders trying to be the Mission (god knows why!) - but tonight even their early songs are earth-shattering, beating anything Hussey ever did in his sorry little career! But it’s the new tunes that are elevating them to the upper echelons of Goth - the likes of 'Netropolis' (an unlikely ode to the internet), with its pounding drums and thrashing guitars. Or 'F Perfect', which is so bouncy the 'F' can only stand for one thing: FUNK!

They tear through the favourites tonight, both old and new. We get 'Mark 13', 'Sundance', 'In Amber', 'Veins', 'Dream Is Dead', 'Messiah', and we’re just begging for more. A loud roar issues forth after the first few bars of each track, as the crowd recognises it. I swear, when 'Care Of The Devil' (something of an anthem around these parts!) starts up, from where I'm standing it looks like everyone is dancing (although that's probably just an affect of the incredible heat). When the pace slows, for the likes of 'A Cure For Pain' (already an old favourite) the dancing doesn't stop - and neither do the screams. Tonight the Dream Disciples hold us in the palm of their sweaty hands, and they give us exactly what we want - while making sure that we know how lucky we are (and showing their control by flatly refusing to play an encore ...although that may just have been because they'd already played everything!)

Although obviously delighted with their new found adoration, its pretty obvious that this is one band who aren’t about to rest on their laurels. Colin warns us there are changes coming - one of which may be concerning the name ("We're thinking about dropping the Dream, and just being...Disciples" (although that may change when they discover there’s already a rap band with that name!) ). But that's for tomorrow, today they're making their first live recording - and the gig has been memorable, not a single technical hitch, not the slightest problem with the sound. The crowd have played their part, and have more than earned their free CD's (if only for the impassioned sing-a-long during 'Sweet Dreams'; "You’re better than the Welsh choir!"). If the live album manages to capture a quarter of the atmosphere present at its conception, then it should be an essential release. I for one can’t wait for my copy.

Dateline: the Real World, some months later

There are only a few British Goth bands who I would go out of my way to see. Bands who I would feel upset if I missed them play. Rosetta Stone and Stun would obviously top the list, and up until last year Dream Disciples would have been languishing somewhere near the relegation zone of the first division (a few places below The Horatii (three divisions above 13 Candles) - but the combination of the last album, and these gigs mean they've hit some kind of turbo boost button and shot all the way to the top of the premiership (without even having to go through the play-offs with Manuskript!) Maybe it was some kind of burgeoning maturity in their song-writing? Maybe it was the sequenced bass? Maybe my tastes just caught up with them? Maybe they've just realised that grandma's words were right all along: "just be yourself, sonny, and you can’t go wrong".

Some changes have already been wrought since these gigs, with ex-Seraphin Twin Gordon Young joining on rhythm guitar to give Sid some help in fleshing things out. Part one of the 'Chocolate Speedway' 1997 European tour should have been completed by now, with the DD's joining up on a huge North/South double-header with the Stun in an effort to bludgeon the continent into submission with loud guitars, infectious choruses, and the ever-confusing British sense of humour.

As James Woods once intoned (before blowing his brains out):

"LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH"

To join the Dream Disciples free information service simply send your name and address (along with some kind of message I suppose ...I don't think they're psychic), to:

Disciple Information
PO Box 13951
Edinburgh
EH16 5ZB
SCOTLAND



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