A fitting end to 22 years of keeping the faith

And so it comes to a long overdue end.

22 years after they formed from the remnants of The Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission, who are now, in effect, the Wayne Hussey Experience, are finally summing up the substance of their work with these four final shows at a Victorian Theatre in East London.

For the uninitiated, this by the way, is their second split. In 1996, to underwhelming apathy (and a piss-poor album not even the band liked), The Mission as-was took their gang show round the world for a handful of shows before waving farewell at a football stadium in South Africa. The band reformed three years later, and did some fabulous shows. And some piss poor ones. The last time I saw them (at the Astoria six years ago), saw an artistically confused band in turmoil, trying to spotweld a journeyman session guitarist who desperately wanted to be in Nine Inch Nails to the rest of the group, before falling apart very publically when it transpired that nobody was getting paid for the work. Undeterred, Wayne Hussey took the remaining guitarist and hired two compliant guns to keep The Mission Gang Show on the road.

Within a matter of nine months the entire band - barring the singer - had changed. This, compounded with the two piss awful shows I saw earlier on that tour and a later, less-than-impressive one-man-and-his-iPod show by a solo Hussey, meant that I resolved to stay away from a series of ever poorer concerts. This was hardly helped by an artistic stagnation that saw the band revert to becoming The Mission UK’s Best Tribute Act In The World Featuring The Original Singer and a complete failure of the group to produce its own artistic identity. The final lineup produced just one live album (OK, to a point), and one forgettable studio record. With an ever changing open door of jobbing musicians and no original members, alongside a lineup that changed with frightening regularity, The Mission were fast disappearing into nothingness. It was an unworthy end to a band that changed lives and sealed marriages and were, for a short while between 1988 and 1991, one of the best live bands in the country whose shows were rightly legendary for their passion and intensity.

Now, 22 years ago, The Mission have become a habit and a job : something they do because they don’t know what else to do, trading on former glories from a lineup with which they only share a name, and an ever diminishing reputation. They almost became the sound of fingernails clinging to a cliff edge.

But these shows, The Final Chapter, are a valid, and bold reclamation of a previously sullied reputation. With these shows, they have boldly reclaimed their place and history. Maybe its because they are splitting up. Maybe its because they know that after this, there really might be no more. Ever. 22 years is a long time.



This is the band choosing to go. A funeral on their own terms. A final match from a prize fighter, determinded to show that, even with his last breath, he could still throw a punch as strong as any rival. This is the final triumphant victory. And to be blunt, it’s a glorious wake, a fervent celebration of everything they ever were. The tarnished memories of the previous few shows I saw have been banished. Instead, this new, hungry look band furiously, passionately unleash their last moments with a vigour and revelation - to luxuriate and enjoy this last kiss from their audience. It’s as if the band and the audience are lovers, and bowing out with one defiant gesture in the face of their sadly inevitable commercial and critical defeat.

Over the course of three hours, the band play their longest and most exhaustive show until there is almost nothing left to give anymore. From the opening “Amelia” at 8.15 to a sprawling, bittersweet “Wasteland” (the very song that opened their first show also closes their last), it’s a long journey. The first part of the set sees their landmark album “Carved In Sand” performed in full - alongside some of the respective b-sides and singles from the same era. It’s a precious but odd experience, to see The Mission perform these songs, though the two bands only share their name and their singer. Nonetheless, longstanding Mish guitarist Mark Gemini-Thwaite (who joined in 1993) plays with a passion and fluency as if he wrote these songs himself : they’ve been part of his life for fifteen years and were on his turntable for a decade before that. The capable, solid, and unexceptional rhythm section of Steve Spring and Richie Vernon meanwhile offer nothing but a dependable recreation of the past.



But the songs. Those songs. Despite the lack of the original players, these songs are just as strong as the original lineup. You wouldn’t know the difference. The band are joined for the final strait by the long-alienated, original guitarist Simon Hinkler (once in Pulp, to your surprise). After an hour of a fearlessly executed history lesson, they leave the stage to be joined a moment later by The Wonder Stuff’s Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls to perform a couple of songs. And then it’s the final, last, farewell. Two hours of the band as they perform a determindedly perverse set that focuses clearly on beloved early album tracks such as “Islands In A Stream” and “Bridges Burning”. I could argue, and quite rightly, about the absence of hit single stalwarts such as “Beyond The Pale” and “Evangeline”, but at the end, it’s mere quibble. The band perform a tight, solid set of older material (including the overlooked “Afterglow” and “Forever More” from their ‘weird’ post-fame period) that serves to remind that there is and was a lot more of them than just flowers, big white shirts and mumbo-jumbo lyrics.

For most of us - barring the season ticket holders who have an aftershow party in the venue and enjoy a final 2 song encore from the band - the last Mission song of all time is also their signature number : “Tower Of Strength”. An unashamed homage to Led Zeppelin, the song mercilessly apes “Kashmir” and recasts it as a communal hymn, a spiritual prayer to healing power of song and of unity. A speechless Wayne Hussey gazes one final time at a crowded room in London as his band conjour up this magical music for the very last time. It’s a victory, for certain, of a sort : to be abdicating this position of one’s own accord, at one’s own terms. The final, glorious statement from a legend that knows that its powers are slowly slipping away, and deciding to provide one last triumph by which to be remembered. It may not be the best Mission concert of all time, but it certainly was the best of theirs I have seen. A fitting Final Chapter that reclaims the bands history from the scrapheap and places them back on the top of the mountain. A fitting end to 22 years of keeping the faith



Pictures reproduced by permission of Oliver Bourgel.

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