Feeling: Reflective

“Live Four” phase.

Royal Festival Hall apparently never allowed Coil to play a set longer than around 55 minutes for any of the three gigs they played there. The two Russia gigs established the “Live Four” set as at least over 80 minutes, even expanding to almost 90 with the addition of “Windowpane” much later on at 2002-10-26 Lodz, so the band were forced to play a substantially truncated set. The nearly ubiquitous “Amethyst Deceivers,” the unpredictable “Lake View,” and the lengthy powerhouse “An Unearthly Red” were all cut to save about 28 minutes, while the combination of “I Am Angie Bowie (Sine Waves)” and “The Last Rites of Spring” were expanded from about 16 to 18 minutes to make an approximately 54-minute performance. “Are You Shivering?” was moved to the tail-end of the set as well. Unless a recording of 2002-10-19 Stockholm eventually proves different, this was the shortest “Live Four” gig Coil ever performed.

Massimo and Pierce stopped painting the black stripe along their bodies from this point on.

Coil opened for Sigur Ros. They liked the band, so Pierce Wyss and Massimo Villani did not make a mess of the stage with fake blood and frenetic dancing like they usually would.

—

Announcer: “Hello, welcome to the Royal Festival Hall. Yeah, that’s it. You can make a big noise. This is, uh, night two of a festival we call ‘Mind Your Head.’ Um, people ask me what it’s all about. Rather than tell you, I’ll just say, uh, what we have coming up. We have The Nice coming up on the 6th with Simian and support, we have Bang on a Can All-Stars performing the music of Terry Riley and Steve Reich on the 7th, and on the 10th of October, Perre Ubu are playing a live soundtrack to It Came from Outer Space (in 3D), with The Electric Prunes supporting. So, what is ‘Mind Your Head’? It’s a drug festival, let’s face it. And with no further ado, it is with great fear and pleasure we bring on Coil.”

I Am Angie Bowie (Sine Waves)/The Last Rites of Spring

This is the first time these two songs have ever segwayed directly into each other. The former is instrumental.

Electricity has made angels of us all

Electricity pulsating through the voltage

We’re gonna go back

We’re gonna go much further back

We’ve gotta go further back and faster

And William Burroughs is hallucinating in space

We’re children of the black sun

Born under a black sun

We are children of the black sun

Born under a black sun

We are children of…

And William Burroughs is hallucinating space

Hallucinating space

And Brion Gysin let the mice in

He let the mice in

(?)

Look through the sin

Broke through the skin

…Which is stuck in

He pierced it with a needle (repeated)

He’s smeared himself with weasels

Pierced him with needles

He cut the horse’s back legs off (repeated)

He caught the back legs

He used his front paws to smear himself

He used his front paws

A long pause

Dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping

Sometimes, the cleanest people think the dirtiest things

We’re feral

Sometimes, the cleanest people think the dirtiest things

Well, we’re feral, we’re feral, we’re feral

Feral

We are feral

We are feral (repeated)

We are animal (repeated)

We are British

We’re not British

We’re not English

We are

We are feral, agh

We are horsey

We are horses

A Warning from the Sun

John: “Would you care about a solar flare? Would you care about a solar flare? A warning, a warning from sun, ‘A Warning from the Sun.’”

Ostia

John: “This next song is about Pasolini and it’s from Horse Rotorvator. But first, some poetry from an Italian.”

During this song and the next, Massimo and Pierce left the stage to give out organic apples to audience members. Massimo even gave one to Marc Almond, who was in attendance at the show. This is the only gig where Pierce and Massimo did this.

John (after the song): “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

I Don’t Want to Be the One

Sometimes, uh, you do things you really don’t want to do, but you have to do them anyway, and sometimes people put things upon you – they project – and they say things about you and they think things about you, and they tell you things, and sometimes it just gets a bit too much, and I just say, ‘I don’t wanna, don’t wanna be the one. I just don’t want to be that person for you. I’ll be another person for you. But don’t ask me to be me now. Not right now. I don’t want to be the one. I don’t have to be the one. I’m gonna be someone else. Take it away, take it away, take it away. Give it to someone else. Don‘t involve me. Don’t try and involve me. Some things do with you, it’s nothing to do with me, don’t involve me. I don’t want to be the one. I don’t have to be the one. I don’t have to be the one and I don’t want to be the one. It’s not my problem, it’s yours. You work it out. Ask someone who doesn’t know who they are. Ask someone who doesn’t care who they are. Ask them if they’ll give themselves away to you? Ask yourself would you give yourself away to someone else? Go ask them such a question. I don’t want to be the one.

Bang Bang

John (after the song): “Everyone has a bit of Nancy Sinatra in them somewhere. That’s a beautiful song written by Sonny Bono for Cher, originally, I think. All good, good people.”

Are You Shivering?

John: “I’m a happy kitten tonight, I’m in love. I’m a happy kitten and I’m in love. But I’m cold. I’m cold. Cold and I’m hungry and I’m thirsty. Yesterday, I tried. Yesterday, I cried for five hours. First cry, the last cry. This is moon musick by the light of the moon. We’ll ask them for international dark skies. Please switch off the lights, please switch off the lights in your houses, in your houses, in your streets, in the streets.” International Dark Skies was one of the proposed titles for Backwards.

John’s closing words: “…And that was it for us tonight, thank you. Thank you very much, thank you.”