Siouxsie, New York City, 1999 Photo by Mike Levine © thecreatures.com

To sum up the night in a few words, I call on that Goth dude, what's-his-name, you know, the one who sings, "The beautiful people, the beautiful people..."

Nevermind Debbie Harry or Stevie Nicks or Yoko Ono – Susan Dallion, a.k.a. Siouxsie Sioux is the original rock diva. Goth pioneers Siouxsie and the Banshees are on a tour they dubbed the Seven Year Itch, because it's been that long since the band toured for their 1995 album, The Rapture. But if you really want to gasp, consider this: it's been 24 years since their genre-defining debut, The Scream. At almost 45 years old, Siouxsie is as entertaining as an Osbournes marathon.

As the band (drummer Budgie, bassist Steven Severin, and guitarist Knox Chandler) walked onto the stage, you could hear people's knees go weak. Siouxsie appeared wearing a sharp black pinstripe suit (cufflinks!) with a silver necktie. Her black hair was cropped into a jagged, messy mini-mullet, and she donned bright red lipstick but no excessive black eye gunk. As soon as people caught a glimpse of their Gothmother, they shouted to each other, "She looks amazing! She looks beautiful! She looks RAPE MEEEEEEE!!" Indeed, Siouxsie looked hot enough to melt the teeth in my mouth, should I dare take a bite. And her body made my jaw crack as it hit the floor. Honey, my ass wasn't that perky when I was a toddler. It's always so heartening to see an older female-trailblazer of music look so damn f-i-n-e. It may be shallow of me to admit that, but I'm shallow, so piss off. In an industry where your youth is your rapidly decreasing insurance, it's a thrill to witness a woman over 40 commandeer the masses and look like a vixen.

Budgie and Siouxsie, NYC, 1999 Photo by Mike Levine Photo © thecreatures.com

Fashion is one-half the Goth ingredient, and the audience was in their Sunday best. What corner of the city do these hip kitties crawl out from, I wonder? Here's a run-down of all those dolled-up: T-shirts of bands like Skinny Puppy and Joy Division; a guy in a black-and-gold sequin dress, dangling earrings, hair in blond cornrows, and eyes smeared in turquoise and black; many voluptuous women, showing as much creamy flesh as their lace and velvet outfits allowed (darlin', it's about 90 degrees in here, screw the velvet); cleavage, cleavage, cleavage; enough dyed-black hair to knit a rug the size of Central Park; new-wavers sporting arm warmers; vampires with streaming hair and powdered faces (and nostrils, too, I'm sure, from the looks of their darting eyes). Speaking of the fashion world, Patricia Field pushed her way past me, her clown-red Jackie-O hairdo parting the sea of inky scalps. Ballsy, that Ms. Field. Wait, what did I come here for again? Oh, right. Music.

So all this eye-candy was great, but my ears were the things that brought me here. Siouxsie took the mic and started whooping the lyric-less song "Pure," in that luscious, macabre ache of a voice that swirls your stomach. Like a dominatrix, the colder Siouxsie got, the more you sweat. But that's not to say she ignored her followers. She expressed her thanks that the rain had stopped, and said, "Thanks for coming to a show with no MTV [support]." At that, the crowd cheered, showing their undying allegiance to all things anti-pop.

Speaking of, Siouxsie and the Banshees followed that credo when they thought up tonight's set list. Frequently heard throughout the night:
"What's the name of this song?"
Um, I'm not really sure.
"Did you know the name of the last song?"
Um... no.

Obscure tracks made up a sizable chunk of the set, and while they were executed with pounding rhythm and intense power chords, it was a bit of a letdown. Those who came expecting to hear "Melt" or "Candyman" were treated instead to B-sides like "I Could Be Again" and "Drop Dead/Celebration." There were a few songs that tore their nails down the crowd's rickety back – "Night Shift," "Happy House," "Christine," and "Eve White, Eve Black." But the high point of the evening was, without a doubt, "Cities in Dust." Bodies swung side to side in feeble attempts at dancing while squished like sardines. The front woman was sweeping across the stage in a grand, drunken manner almost as if she were partaking in interpretive calisthenics. With one foot up on the floor amp, Siouxsie would lean into the crowd, jump around, and fling her arms to and fro. It was amazing how she could slink about one minute and stomp treacherously the next. What's more, by "Kiss Them for Me," Siouxsie doffed her shirt and strutted around in a black bra with rhinestone-covered cups. I was slipping around in puddles of human drool. Meow.

Flowers were tossed onstage, shirts flew from the balcony, and the pulse of the music yanked me by the, um, limbs. Before exiting the stage, Siouxsie whipped the mic over her head like a demonic cowgirl. For an encore, the band returned to do a rousing cover of the Beatles' "Blue Jay Way."

So we didn't get to hear "Love in a Void," but Siouxsie and the Banshees certainly didn't send their minions home empty-handed. Goth bless the beautiful people.