Tuesday night was a very special one as it saw the long awaited return of Cabaret Voltaire to the Metro. This was the first of a two night stand and the most beloved music venue in the city. It had been over 30 years since the band played here, and these shows were the last time we’ll ever have them back as they announced this as their farewell tour.
I Speak Machine opened the show. This is the audio/visual performance art of Tara Busch. Tara is hyper talented and quite a stage presence. A one-person show, Busch commanded the stage as she performed a variety of songs, each one with an accompanying video playing on the screen behind her. Busch can go from shrieking to operatic singing at a moments notice and will hypnotize you with this ability as. you get sucked into the music accompanying her. There was a lot of flashing lights and fog to round out the experience. It was a fantastic 30 minute set and I Speak Machine should be at the top of your list of acts to see any chance you get.
Cabaret Voltaire was up next. The touring lineup for this last run is founding member Stephen Mallinder, Benge, Eric Random, and Tara Busch filling in for founding member Chris Watson, who was unable to make this tour. You really couldn’t ask for a better pinch hitter than Tara, and she filled those shoes easily.
The four band members each tackled a variety of instruments and each had their own station, with Mallinder front and center. While they performed, they had custom made visuals for each song projecting behind them, which served as a lot of the stage lighting, the rest of the stage was pretty dark. It made for a really cool experience, but it was pretty hard to photograph as you could imagine.
The band opened with “24/24” and the sound in that room was mixed beyond perfectly! Everything from the start to finish sounded crystal clear, with great low end that you could feel in. your bones without anything being overpowering. It was impossible to stand still as you felt the great music being emitted from the Metro’s stage. The band didn’t take much time at all between songs, and Mallinder wasn’t big on talking between songs much but did chime in on occasion, including putting over how great Chicago has been to them over the years.
Cabaret Voltaire delivered a near perfect 13 songs for their main set. Some highlights included “Crackdown”, “Seconds Too Late”, “Kino”, among others. The crowd was dancing the entire time and people were having a great time, some even travelled from neighboring states for this once in a lifetime opportunity to see the band play this farewell tour. When the band ended the set with “Do Right”, Mallinder thanked the crowd while visuals and some cool sounds remained playing on the stage. It was maybe two or three minutes later that they returned to go out on a really high note with a three song encore of “Nag Nag Nag”, “I Want You”, and “Sensoria”. It was as strong of a finish as you could have wanted, talking about sending the crowd home happy, the place was all smiles as the people started making their way to the exits.
