Soaking in the Past at the Cruel World Festival

Yahoo

22-05-2025

The very first Cruel World festival at Brookside at the Rose Bowl was held over two sweltering 90+ degree days in 2022, daring denizens of gloomy music and ghoulish dress-up to brave the California sun in their fishnets to see their favorite artists live in an outdoor festival setting. Saturday's wet and rainy 2025 edition may have been more appropriate in terms of environment for a goth and new wave assembly, but it didn't appear to be as successful, and the rain wasn't even the main problem. Economic struggle has affected us all, from gas to groceries and especially entertainment like concerts. Coachella, now a mainstream pop extravaganza, barely sold out its GA tickets this year in its first weekend, and the second weekend didn't sell out at all. Beyonce, who kicked off her Cowboy Carter Tour with five nights at Sofi Stadium did ultimately sell out, but it wasn't quick, and cheap seats were released each night to fill the venue. Niche and nostalgia fests like Cruel World can be hot tickets but the bill has to be right— and the formula can't last forever unless it evolves. C.W. has attempted to do that as its grown, dipping into poppier acts from the 80's and expanding its scope into the 90's and 2000's alongside 80's bands and new ones inspired by them. But excitement for this year's line-up never matched the first incarnations which featured comeback shows from post-punk legends Bauhaus (2022) and Siouxsie Sioux (2023), and pop-friendly new wave poster boys Duran Duran (2024).
At this year's Cruel World —headlined by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and New Order, with secondary bill-toppers including the Go-Go's, Devo, OMD, Death Cult, Garbage, Madness, Til Tuesday, She Wants Revenge and Alison Moyet— the bad weather definitely put a damper on things, but the atmosphere was clearly diminished regardless, from the vendor count to the crowd itself. Musically, there were more hits than misses, but some of the misses were huge.New Order closed out the night on the main Outsiders Stage with a whimper, and even a vibrant light and laser show couldn't save them. Lead singer Bernard Sumner's vocals were on the weak side of acceptable, but his energy was lacking to the extent that we wondered if he even wanted to be there. The band have a handful of heartfelt hits that bring a lot of us back to a wistful time in our lives. For me, songs like "True Faith" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" recall teen breakups, unrequited loves, house parties and clubs (right there in Pasadena) where they all played out. New Order's music is melancholy in the best possible way, especially from the Gen X perspective— upbeat sonically but haunting lyrically. Saturday the band didn't come close to conveying the emotion that made them so special in their heyday. Even their Joy Division material lacked angst. 'Blue Monday' a hit so well-known, it veers into wedding reception playlist territory (it played at mine anyway) felt limp as well.
By contrast, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who played just before New Order, were mesmerizing and powerful. It felt like they had something to prove, though Cave's transcendent performances always kind of feel that way. He may be a legendary dark music figure —from his time in the Birthday Party to his Bad Seeds and Grinderman projects— but he doesn't have the American radio hits that many from Saturday's bill did. Some Reddit and social media groups doubted him as a headliner, pointing out his lack of populist appeal. They were proven wrong on Saturday, and we're guessing many of the same naysayers became new fans this past weekend. The Bad Seeds turned in the best headliner set of the day led by Cave's eternally visceral, passionate, theatrical presence up front. Even when no one in the crowd knew the words to sing along to classics like "Frogs" and "Tupelo," or the band's latest, "Wild God" (read our conversation about the record HERE), he had everyone enraptured from start to finish. Across the Brookside Golf Club grounds at the Sad Girls stage, The Go-Go's played in between the two headliners. Sound-wise, they had some problems but their energy made up for it. These ladies are L.A. legends of course, and it was nice to see them get the spotlight twice, first at Coachella and then at C.W. Dressed in sequins, lame and colorful prints, the band brought lots of exuberance to their set full of hits like "Our Lips are Sealed," "Vacation" and "We Got the Beat," which were joyful if imperfect, leading guitarist Jane Wiedlin to remind fans that they started out a bit sloppy too, playing at the legendary Hollywood punk club The Masque.
Other retro sets that made the soggy Saturday worth trekking: Blancmange, whose hits "Don't Tell Me" and "Living on the Ceiling" sounded just as sharp as they did when we first heard them on K-ROQ 106.7 and DJ Richard Blade's local new wave TV show MV3; Alison Moyet, arguably one of the most powerful voices of the 80's, giving us chills-inducing takes on Yazoo faves "Situation," "Only You" and "Don't Go;" the Buzzcocks poppy-punk bops which still have bounce even without Pete Shelley. It poured during all these sets but it didn't matter; each made their own splash.So did Madness, whose ska-flaired pop is proving timeless on stage (and in TV commercials); Devo, who've shown they basically can't give a bad performance at this point, with ebullient sets at the first Cruel World and last year's Darker Waves as well as Sat.; OMD, a vocals-driven group whose hits like "If You Leave" and "Enola Gay" still sparkled; and Death Cult (for many of us, their closing nod to the Love era with "She Sells Sanctuary" made the set). Beyond Cave, who is really in a class by himself —or at least, right next to Peter Murphy, Siouxsie and Morrissey from past fests— the strongest sets of the day came from Garbage and She Wants Revenge, two somewhat younger bands who've been around the block but clearly still have a lot of hunger on stage and in their hearts. Rather than simply playing their hits and hoping they still sound good, both added nuances to their best known numbers and served up new material they're been working on that actually got us excited to hear more.
Dressed in a colorful ruffled frock, Garbage's Shirley Manson really connected with the crowd talking about the Butch Vig-led band's 32 year journey and conveying what an honor it was to share the stage with so many influential artists. She also begrudged her band's slot against Devo, playing the opposite stage at the same time, and thanked everyone for being there. Garbage may not have fit with the festival's 80's-heavy or goth thematics on paper, but songs like "#1 Crush," "Paranoid," and especially "Only Happy When Rains" were perfect vibe-wise and Manson made them sound and feel majestic.Speaking of the rain. She Wants Revenge's Justin Warfield was the only one to truly celebrate Saturday's weeping clouds, likening the day to the perfect "goth prom." Indeed, the grey clouds made for a sexy and moody backdrop behind him as he crooned hits like "These Things" and "Red Flags and Long Nights."A Psychedelic Furs cover, a new song and the early 2000s-era band's now iconic hit "Tear You Apart" (which won new fans when a vampiric Lady Gaga seduced and bludgeoned someone to the track in American Horror Story a few years ago) represented everything Cruel World can and hopefully will continue to be: dark and dramatic energy, killer hooks and lyrical reverence for the outsiders and weirdos who made music so interesting and intoxicating decades ago.
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