release date: May 19, 2003
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Siouxsie and the Banshees
label: Sanctuary Records / Wonderland - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 2. Jigsaw Feeling" - 3. "Metal Postcard" - 5. "Lullaby" - 6. "Lands End" - 9. "Night Shift" - 10. "Voodoo Dolly" - 13. "Monitor"
2nd live album by Siouxsie and the Banshees is a release, which comes eight years after the band's final studio album The Rapture (1995) and seven years following their final live performance - and hence the title.
Shortly following the '95 album, the band were released from its contract with Polydor, although, they still completed a planned live tour with yet another new guitarist. Jon Klein was replaced by Knox Chandler (of Psychedelic Furs) and the following year, the band officially disbanded. Sioux and Budgie continued briefly as a married couple and with their common duo The Creatures. In Apr. 2002, the two teamed up with bassist Steven Severin and Knox Chandler to organize a short live tour, which however, aside from a few concerts at home, also brought the band to the US and Japan. They named the tour "The Seven Year Itch Tour" - with reference to the fact that it had now been seven years since they last played together, and also inspired by Billy Wilder's famous film.
The selected tracks are neither the obvious hits nor the previously more critically acclaimed compositions, but instead rather a collection of lesser known tracks originating from singles' B-sides and fan favourites from the their many live performances over the years. All in all, it's stylistically kept in the band's mid-eighties tone with focus on bass, drums, guitar, and Sioux's vocal, and the tracks are also mainly from the early years, although both Tinderbox (1986) and Peepshow (1988) are represented.
The album garnered great reviews and instead of being followed by selected singles, the album was released in several formats - including VHS and DVD.
It's definitely worth a listen, but is mostly fan material - and here we don't hint at the kind of success the band experienced with commercial alt. dance songs at the end of their career, but fans from an early stage.
Immediately after the end of the 2002 Japan tour, Siouxsie and Budgie stayed in Tokyo and recorded some improvised tracks, which were later mixed in France for a series of new compositions intended for the fourth and final studio album Hái! (Oct. 2003) by The Creatures. Siouxsie and the Banshees didn't continue as a band - The Seven Year Itch - Live is a stand-alone tour and album, but subsequently several compilation albums have been issued by Polydor / Universal. In 2004, the label released the 4 CD box set Downside Up, in 2005 the album Gold, as a 2 CD release - an album which in fact is identical to The Best of Siouxsie & The Banshees from 2002, only presented with new cover and title. In 2006 the label issued Voices on the Air (The Peel Sessions), which collects five appearances on the BBC 1 in dedication to John Peel, who died in 2004 - by far the best compilation with the band so far. In 2009, the label then issued a 4-disc box set, Siouxsie and the Banshees at the BBC, and you'll find another three or four releases by Polydor / Universal.
The Seven Year Itch - Live is a really fine supplement to the band's best live album Nocturne (1988).
