Kat Says: “Fuck Off, Lightning! A Cruel World Chronicle.”
I’m back to share my story of Cruel World Festival in LA, and I brought other goodies.
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Hey Friends,
Long is the hour since last we spoke, and your eyes haunted my mind in its absence.
Sorry, just a bit of bad goth poetry for you—which is fitting! Because today’s newsletter is a recap of my experience at the second-annual Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, CA., and there is no greater gathering of middle-aged goths in the States that I know of.
It’s also fitting that I took such a protracted break, because the headliner for this year’s fest was herself returning to the stage after a painfully long hiatus.
Siouxsie Sioux, the dark-eyed queen of gothdom herself, returned earlier this year from a decades-long hiatus and gifted Cruel World with her first Stateside performance in 15 years.
Without polling all 70,000 ticket holders, I feel confident nearly everyone in attendance bought their ticket in order to see this rarest of birds belt “Cities in Dust” in all her powerful glory.
Whether in our mid-50s, mid-30s or early 20s, any goth worth their salt has at least once tried on a bit of Siouxsie Sioux eye makeup or danced the ghost to “Happy House,” and the chance to be in our matriarch’s presence is not something I ever thought would actually happen in my lifetime.
So when I say the crowd was nothing short of devastated when we were told to quickly and calmly “evacuate the festival” a mere 27 minutes before Siouxsie was scheduled to stage her victorious return apropos of *nothing*, I mean we were absolutely devastated.
This is a pic of Jamie and me having fun, but it actually captures the anger of the canceled fest pretty well.
Have you ever felt the confused power of 70,000 people losing all hope in a single instant? I have—and goths are morose to begin with!
Oh, it’s a Cruel, Cruel World indeed.
Further Reading: Kat Says: “Take Me Back To Anything, Anything Before This.”
Up until that point, everything about the trip had been pretty wonderful. I arrived in LA late Thursday evening, my hair blond and slicked back in a thick layer of leave-in conditioner. My bestie Jordan manically bleached it before we got on the flight out of Fort Lauderdale in the hope that we could dye it in our boy Jake’s living room before the festival.
(Good news! We pulled it off, and I have never felt more in touch with my goth teenage roots.)
Maybe it’s because I’m back to living in the county I grew up in, or maybe it’s because I’m still growing the courage to listen to French Touch since my ex-boyfriend dumped me, but I’ve really been leaning into my post-punk and new wave upbringing. All workday long, I listen to First Wave on SiriusXM, so I was incredibly hyped for the day’s lineup of ‘80s hits.
From Echo and the Bunnymen (rescheduled because they couldn’t make it last year), to the highly anticipated reunion of Love and Rockets (who are Bauhaus without Peter Murphy, as it turns out. How did I go so many years without knowing that?!), Gang of Four, Modern English, Billy Idol, Iggy Pop and GARY FUCKING NUMAN, the lineup was a veritable who’s who of my early 2000s iPod.
Further Reading: Kat Says: “Once A Goth, Always A Goth”
Feeling empowered as fuck by my new gothy hair, I strolled into the Rose Bowl stadium ready to grab nostalgia by the rose thorn.
I’ve never had an easier time getting through festival security in my life. Well, that’s not entirely true. The first time I went through, I had my parasol open, and this one lady who took her job really seriously told me I couldn’t bring it in “because it has metal parts.”
I put on my best pout but she didn’t care, so I walked away, closed my parasol and walked right in on the other side of the entrance, lol. My friends Kristin and Sam snuck in a ton of alcohol—and food. Literally no one at this festival but that one lady cares.
We got there too late to catch Animotion playing “Obsession,” but we did get to see Berlin filling in for Adam Ant, who sadly had to cancel last minute for *check’s notes*, no one knows why?
After finding all my friends near the black rose sand garden, we headed to the main Outsiders stage to see a bit of Twin Shadows and count the number of Unknown Pleasures t-shirts in the audience. We had a little contest going to see who could guess the closest number of shirts we’d see without going over. I said 15 and everyone thought I was nuts, but by 4 p.m., we had to adjust the rules to exclude any parody t-shirts, because the final count was already getting out of hand.
Twin Shadows was the only modern act I saw, because while Molchat Doma and Boy Harsher are decidedly cool, I’m tryin’ to run a lil Pokemon catch ‘em all on these elder groups that changed my life and miiiight not be touring that much longer.
Modern English really surprised me. I came for “I Melt With You” and stayed for the 45 minutes of certified post-punk bangers. Truly, I will be digging into that extended catalog immediately—but once the last notes of the big hit sing-along died down, I immediately high-tailed it to the Sad Girls stage to catch a legendary sighting of Gang of Four.
I was being normal about it, and then I heard the distant clang of “Return The Gift” wafting in the wind and broke into the most meaningful run I could without dislocating my still-achy knee all over again.
Further Reading: Kat Says: “Sorry For Party Rockin’”
Gang of Four is one of my favorite bands of all time. Entertainment! is required listening by every creature with ears. My first meaningful boyfriend (whom you know as Mr. “Love Song”) had a VHS tape of Gang of Four playing some show in the ‘70s. We used to sit and stare longingly as singer Jon King beat a metal chair with a hammer, basically giving birth to deconstructionist noise rock in the process, and I’d dream desperately of a time and place cooler than my own.
I’m happy to report that Gang of Four still fucking rocks. They played "Not Great Men," "I Love a Man in a Uniform," "Anthrax," "At Home He's a Tourist," "Natural's Not in It,” "To Hell With Poverty" and more, all while flashing messages including Black Lives Matter and Woman Life Freedom on the big screen. These anti-capitalists aren’t just virtue signaling either. They have a diverse presence of performers on stage, including a little dog and adorable children.
It would have been great to have original guitarist Andy Gill up there. I would have loved to hear what he could do, but he sadly passed away at the start of COVID. Still, David Pajo did a real cool job and even played his guitar with his mic stand. The highlight for me though was when King brought out a microwave and beat it to the death with a baseball bat for the entirety of “He’d Send In The Army.” He threw it off stage at the end. I would have tried to catch it if I were in the front row.
After that came Gary Numan. His album Replica with Tubeway Army and solo LP Pleasure Principles are two major spinal columns that hold up my musical library. I was ecstatic when he took the stage, and while he only played “Metal” and “Cars” from those days, I was really impressed with his overall stage presence and general air of rock stardom. He’s deep in an industrial apocalypse vibe these days, but like, I don’t think anyone brought quite the air of mysticism as our android king.
Echo and the Bunnymen followed, and while the Liverpool icons played all their best hits, I felt strangely disconnected from their set. The band chose not to use any visuals and didn’t even opt to be filmed and showcased on the large screens, so unless you were right in front of them, you couldn’t actually see anything. It was a choice, but we got to hear “The Killing Moon” and “The Cutter,” so fuck it.
A handful of us ran to see the first half of Billy Idol’s set. That man may be 67, but he’s still serving hot rock god vibes on a studded leather plate. His guitarist was like something ripped from a 1980s hair-metal fantasy—but, y’know, in his ‘60s, too. I really wanted to see “Eyes Without A Face,” but I had to high-tail it after “Flesh For Fantasy” if I had any hope of catching the Love and Rockets reunion.
Last year, Bauhaus wow-ed me with its stage presence. I’m still shivering from the sheer drama of it all, and Love and Rockets brought an equal amount of excellence this time around, albeit in the brighter and more balls-out rock’n’roll style that the former delivers.
The band overlayed this psychedelic swirl over all their live-cam footage. It felt like you were watching a music video come to life, and they sounded tight as hell. I got there just in time to enjoy "No New Tale To Tell," "So Alive" and "Ball of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)."
From there, it was a quick run to catch the end of Idol’s set with “White Wedding,” then a divergence of friends as my girl Jamie and I chose punk grandfather Iggy Pop over synthpop darlings Human League.
It was magical, standing there watching this 76-year-old barbed-wire string of a man wriggle his over-chewed-leather body with all the gusto of a spring chicken. Much as I felt watching John Lydon perform with Public Image Limited in 2022, I was awe-struck with the reality that this singular creature invented an entire subculture of art and music simply by being himself.
It was only a few songs into his set that the trouble started. First, the speakers started to go out, and though the audience roared in shocked annoyance, Pop’s monitors must have been blasting because he didn’t miss a beat. The music dropped right back into the middle of “Strung Out Johnny” as Pop declared “you’re fucked up!” and we thought it was just a slight hiccup.
Then it happened again. And again.
“Oh, they better not do this during Siouxsie,” I yelled, and then Pop went into his tune “The Passenger,” which Siouxsie and her Banshees turned into their own hit. It was a joyous moment where we all wondered at the legend on stage while dreaming of the headliner to come so soon. Pop brought out some cute little kid, whom I assume is his grandson or some shit, and the boy started busting out some TikTok moves.
“Hey, that’s cool,” Pop said in the cutest old-man surfer drawl, and he sat back and let the moment ride. Then, when he started singing the song’s chorus to close it out, the fucking speakers went out again, and this time, they didn’t come back.
“Attention please,” a man’s voice boomed from the loudspeakers. “Please safely and calmly evacuate the festival. Seek shelter immediately.”
At first, I thought someone had hit the wrong button and played some kind of pre-recorded emergency message on accident. Then the footage of Iggy Pop changed abruptly into a red warning message, and the icy realization that this was no dream, this was really happening washed over my broken heart.
My friend Jamie and I didn’t say a word, just embraced each other in desperate sadness. We stared into the frowns of those around us for a moment, then started making the depressed and defiant shuffle toward the exits. We met our friends Kristin and Sam by the black rose sand trap once again, where an artist was screaming at people to “please leave the roses! They’re part of my installation! You can’t take them!” But our friends Jordan and Jake were stuck on the other side of the Rose Bowl, separated from us by some thousands of gathering goths.
A few folks started fighting security guards and knocking down trash cans, but all in all, the middle-aged misfits just moped in disgust. The official statement was that “inclement weather” was on its way to pummel our heads, but after having seen one distant lightning flash during the initial announcement, not a single thunderclap or drop of rain broke from the sky. There wasn’t even an excess of wind, and we were all getting really, really pissed.
“Do you want some fireball?” Sam asked me, offering a tiny bottle of Pitbull’s favorite spirit.
“Fuck yeah, dude,” I said. “This shit is fucked up, and I’m gonna get fucked up, too.”
Thus began our unofficial Cruel World afterparty in the Rose Bowl parking lot.
I started playing Siouxsie songs on my phone and talking to other lost souls. We were all equally dumbfounded and gut-wrenched at being so unceremoniously duped of our dance with the queen.
My friends and I were in no hurry to sit in our cars and wait in the exit line, so we went and bought a ton of street dogs from the hot dog cart people, then we bought all their beer. I heard someone playing goth music in a van, so I walked up to the driver and asked “can we party with y’all for a moment?”
The van guys (Lorenzo, Stacy and Mike) ended up being really cool! We’d actually seen them all day long, because Stacy was dressed in bright green fishnet from head to toe. They turned up the volume and hopped out of the car to join us in some late-hour bitching and goth dancing, sharing their pre-mixed cocktails and ‘80s playlists as we turned that sad moment into a silver lining of human connection. A few more wandering would-be partiers joined us, and eventually, the hot dog cart and beer cooler people came and joined us too, so we bought even more hot dogs and beer! A Gothmas miracle!
I had high hopes that the organizers would do the right thing and welcome us all back Sunday to see Siouxsie Sioux, but everyone thought I was deliriously hopeful. After an hour or so of tequila shots and heartfelt meanderings with our newfound friends, we decided it was time to gtfo for real, exchanged numbers and went our separate ways.
When I woke up on Jake’s couch the next morning, all my dreams had come true.
“Did you see they are rescheduling Siouxsie and Iggy today?” Lorenzo had texted me. “Maybe Siouxsie saw us and was like ‘oh, they don’t give up. Such persistent little creatures.’”
Slightly hungover and achy from all that back-and-forth stage running, I thanked the goth gods that Goldenvoice stepped the fuck up. Kristin and Sam changed their flights home, we all forced a bit of coffee down our gullets, and by 5 pm, we were back again for more.
Big daddy Pop gave us another great performance, switching up his set list a bit and finally giving me the “Lust For Life” moment the Trainspotting superfan in me was so looking forward to. He played his big Stooges hits and even got through “The Passenger” without so much as a speaker scuffle. Then, as the sun went down and the new moon rose high in the sky, the hour of our retribution did come.
“I can’t believe what happened last night,” Siouxsie said after making a dramatic entrance to “Night Shift.” “Wonderful fire department broke in. I was trying to tell ‘em ‘it’s part of our fucking light show!’”
She worked through a ghostly setlist of a lifetime, singing everything from "Arabian Knights" to "Kiss Them for Me," "Dear Prudence," "Face to Face," "Christine" and more. Of course, she did "Cities in Dust," and she really gave it to us for "Happy House," all the while taking sassy digs at the idea that she’d just “come back next year” and showering us with love between tunes.
“I don’t know why it’s been so long,” she said, promising to return a lot sooner this time. I’m glad I caught her, just in case that doesn’t happen. This was after all her only North American performance scheduled for the entire year.
Despite all the trouble, we did get an extended set from Siouxsie who gave us everything she could up there. It does sound like she’s still getting back her vocal bearings, and I can only imagine how thunderous she must have been in her prime, but her punk-rock attitude and self-assured wisdom were inspiring to behold. I wouldn’t be who I am today without this woman, and I think I can say the same for just about everyone in that audience.
We ran into our friends from the parking lot on the way out. I feel hopeful that we’ll see them again next year, because I don’t think I can ever really stop going to Cruel World, as long as they keep booking lineups with such ferocious legends—as long as they learn to fucking live with the lightning. It’s a goth festival, after all, and we goths know a bit of stormy weather is just part of life’s light show.
Speaking of lightning and light shows, I do apologize for the long break in Kat Scrawls writing. I’ve been fighting back some storm clouds of my own lately. I’ve fallen into a bit of an emotional rut, but I’m digging myself out now.
I’ve got a lot of cool backlogged stories to share, and I’m intending to be back on track from this Monday on. Keep your eyes peeled for another quicky on Wednesday, and it’s coming with a podcast-style recording of my recent interview with Moby for those subscribers who show their support by joining the paid tier.
Whether your pay for this subscription to not, I want y’all to know your encouragement goes a long way to help when I’m feeling down, so I thank each and every one of you for being part of this journey with me :)
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Alsooo
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you might have seen me sharing my recent Moby interview on socials. It was actually my second chance to speak with him, and we talked for about an hour about so many things. It was an amazing convo, and you can read the story that came from it below, but like I said, more on this to come.
Moby On Reinventing Some Of His Biggest Hits With An Orchestra and ‘Ignoring the Pursuit of Cool’ (Billboard Dance, May 2023)
I’m slowly catching up on my video edits, too. You can now enjoy Kat Calls: Starya and Larmon on my YouTube channel, or in the video players below!
Kat Calls: Starya
Kat Calls: Lamorn
Coming Up Next
Ooooooh y’all! I maaaay have a super-tight Kat Calls guest this Thursday, but I’m waiting to see if his schedule works for the chat because he’s in the UK right now and therefore it would be a late-night chat for him. Cross your fingers, and watch my socials for more updates!
That being said, hit me with your requests as we move forward into the summer season. I’m always down to try nabbing someone you’d like to see on the show!
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
The playlists are once again updated! This time with tunes from Lamorn, .ford, Mat Zo, a triumphant return to form from Rye Rye, and more!
Otherwise, that’s it for this week. I’m back, people. Fuck yeah. Let’s go. Good luck this week. Love you. ;)
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!