Bauhaus in Chicago.

So I saw Bauhaus last night. I had been looking forward to this show for a long time and I did not walk away disappointed. The band is in exceptionally fine form and their set-list was impeccable. One could see glimpses of what cause the group’s break-up two decades ago by the interplay between Peter Murphy and Daniel Ash since both are born frontmen but ultimately they attacked the songs as a team and kept the band’s reputation intact. I had stated in a preview on another site that one of the reasons this particular reunion tour is one to watch is because Bauhaus quit at the top of their game and left behind a catalog that never had a chance to grow into something embarrassing or unwieldy.

In fact the only thing that has been detrimental to the band at all has been the stamping of the imprimatur of the Goth movement upon them and the unfortunate fact that many, many people less inventive than the members of Bauhaus have invoked the band’s name in connection with their own fairy tales about the dark side of humanity set to minor chords. One needs to remember that Bauhaus was actually closer to a glam band – their selections in terms of songs they chose to cover makes that pretty clear — than what now passes for Goth music. The group took what it knew, injected some dub stylings and a healthy dose of guitar atmospherics and ended up with a unique result that has stood the test of time.

So I was going to review the show in detail here but decided it wasn’t necessary since Joshua Klein has already done so in today’s Chicago Tribune. He does a nice job of factually hitting the show’s highlights and occasional weaknesses and for that I have to admire the serviceable side of his review. If only he had kept it to that.

You see Klein pulled out every tired Goth and undead and vampire cliché and littered them throughout his entire review. While he was really favorable towards the performance the end written result made the plaudits unrecognizable behind a wall of cartoonish verbal buffoonery. If ever there was an example of completely misguided journalism this is it. So what are we left with? Yet another ode to Bauhaus steeped in the lazy journalistic shorthand of a writer taking the easy way out and thrusting a piece that, when read as a whole, is nothing short of moronic. What’s worse is the fact that this just continues to propagate silly stereotypes about a group that really deserves more. And why? Lazy criticism.

Also, Mr. Klein, next time you decide to throw a phrase like sui generic into your review you might want to further remember the audience that actually reads the Tribune and just say unique instead. I’m not sure why you think you need to hide behind tricky wordsmithing when something straightforward and honest would be much more effective, but I hope future reviews you write don’t use the same lazy crutches that hamper this one.