The Sisters of Mercy

with special guest Blaqk Audio

Tickets | Information

Doors 7pm | Show 8pm

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The Sisters of Mercy

The Sisters of Mercy is an English rock band, formed in 1980 in Leeds. After achieving early underground fame there, the band had their commercial breakthrough in the mid-1980s and sustained it until the early 1990s, when they stopped releasing new recorded output in protest against their record company WEA. Currently, the band are a touring outfit only.

The group has released three original studio albums: First and Last and Always (1985), Floodland (1987), and Vision Thing (1990). Each album was recorded by a different line-up; singer-songwriter Andrew Eldritch and the drum machine called Doktor Avalanche are the only points of continuity throughout. Eldritch and Avalanche were also involved in The Sisterhood, a side-project connected with Eldritch's dispute with former members.

The Sisters of Mercy ceased recording activity in the early 1990s, when they went on strike against East West Records, whom they accused of incompetence and withholding royalties, and had pressured the group to release at least two more studio albums; instead, the label released the album Go Figure under the moniker SSV in 1997. Although the Sisters of Mercy were eventually released from their contract with East West, they have never been signed to another label nor released any new material, despite showcasing numerous new songs in their live sets.

Blaqk Audio

The shadowy electronic side band of AFI's main songwriting team of Davey Havok and Jade Puget, Blaqk Audio was officially unveiled in the late 2000s with the goth-dance CexCells. Taking inspiration from industrial dance, new wave, and EBM, the project allowed Havok and Puget to indulge their dark, dance-centric tendencies, topping the U.S. Dance charts three consecutive times. By 2019, the pair had issued their fourth album of polished synth pop revivalism, Only Things We Love, to close out the decade. The 2020s kicked off with their fifth set, Beneath the Black Palms, which was quickly followed by 2022's Trop d'amour.

Although Havok and Puget had been working on songs for Blaqk Audio since before AFI's breakthrough album Sing the Sorrow came out in 2003, it took a few years for the music to see the light of day. The success of their group's major-label debut prevented the two from spending much time on Blaqk, though Puget still continued to bring programmed sounds into AFI's repertoire, both on Sing the Sorrow and 2006's Decemberunderground. Finally in early 2007 -- with Havoc on vocals and Puget on everything else -- they were able to complete what they began, releasing the all-electronic dance- and goth-inspired CexCells on Interscope in August of that same year. Combining an equal measure of influence from Depeche Mode, New Order, and Pet Shop Boys, Blaqk Audio resurrected a distinctly nocturnal '80s sound for the aughts.