Melody Maker (9.20.80)

Live Review - Excerpt of review of The Leeds Futurama Festival.
by Lynden Barber

OVERKILL The Futurama of rock?

...Meanwhile, most of the audience are more interested in positioning themselves in front of the left-hand stage, where billtopper Siouxsie and the Banshees are due to come on.

They’re not disappointed. Siouxsie’s performance is quite simply one of the most inspiring I’ve ever seen anyone give. She owns the stage, turning the traditional passive sex symbol role of the female singer on its head. She chastises the hordes of 18- to 21-year-old wide-eyed youths reaching their hands out towards her, telling them, "I didn’t say you could talk" like a schoolmistress. Siouxsie is sexual, but in a dominant way, smashing a tambourine against a mike stand and flailing her microphone lead like a whip. The Banshees seem to feed off the atmosphere of near hysteria as they run through powerful versions of most of the songs from "Kaleidoscope", and McGeoch and Budgie add new touches to older songs like "Switch", "Regal Zone" and "Jigsaw Feeling". It’s an overwhelming performance, and I almost panic at the threat of being crushed by people hanging precariously off the scaffolding around the stage....