Posted by Rebecca Tremblay
http://www.radio1075.com/
Last week, Ian Astbury of The Cult stopped the band’s show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to address a fan who was filming and texting during the concert, and now the singer is explaining his side of the story in a new interview.
“Initially the guy was filming the whole show — he was filming everything”. “It’s kind of a disease that we have where people aren’t present and after while it kind of trips you up, it becomes a distraction. Usually you don’t let things like that trip you out, but when it’s right in front of you doing it… one guy was sitting on the side of the stage eating cake [laughs] and that tripped me out too, but I went over and ate his cake.”
“When you have habitual filming going on, it’s disruptive to the performance,” continued Astbury. “When you’ve got someone visualizing the show through a cell phone, that action spreads out through the crowd. And this genius, first of all, I politely asked him to stop filming; I don’t mind if you take pictures, that’s cool, filming little bits – but don’t film the entire set; enough’s enough. At first I was kind of amused, but the next thing, he’s texting during a song. That’s incredibly disruptive, watching people in the front row so disconnected from the process — not even present. You might as well stay at home.”
“I commented to this guy, ‘Will you please stop texting?’ He didn’t pay attention,” Astbury explained. “I had water in my mouth, I sprayed it right next to him, and he just exploded — exploded; trying to climb over the barriers, trying to get into a fight with me, he’s flipping me off, he’s screaming at me, ‘Fuck you…’ And I was just like, ‘You’re rude. This is our house, you’re behaving disrespectfully, you’re disruptive, you’re affecting the functioning of the whole evening, and you’re disconnected — so why bother coming?’”
“Initially when we walk out onstage, pretty much 60 percent of the audience had a phone up,” says the singer. “That’s pretty much just the way it’s now, upfront, and that’s cool, we have no problem with that. But when it bleeds into the entire show and you’re doing songs like ‘Embers’, for example, which is a very intimate song, a very revealing song, and people are just really disconnected and it does break the spell. It’s like a cancerous cell of disconnection in the room.”
The Cult are currently on the road across North America for their Electric 13 tour, which sees the band performing its 1987 album, “Electric”, in its entirety, and a second set featuring tracks from the band’s career.
The tour coincides with the July 30 release of the 2-disc set, “Electric Peace.”
The collection pairs 1987’s “Electric” with the group’s abandoned “Peace” album, a project The Cult recorded as the follow-up to 1985’s “Love.” After recording the full album with producer Steve Brown, the group weren’t happy with the final results, which seemed too polished.
The Cult then contacted producer Rick Rubin to remix the lead track, “Love Removal Machine”, and Rubin agreed, but only on condition that the track was entirely re-recorded. Thrilled with the results of the Rubin sessions, the band abandoned the original “Peace” recordings and re-recorded the entire album in New York with him, resulting in “Electric.”
