Peter Murphy Is Still in Parties: Live at the Mayan Last Night

Timothy Norris

Peter Murphy: Still epic

[For more photos of the show, see Timothy Norris' slideshow "Peter Murphy@The Mayan".]

Who: Peter Murphy
Where: The Mayan
When: 3/15/2011

Words like "killer", "awesome", and "epic" are often used to describe a show, words like "exquisite", "beautiful", and "breathtaking", not so much. However, those are just a few of the words that come to mind when describing what Peter Murphy did at The Mayan.

Once again, Peter Murphy shames everyone else:

Coming onto stage with an air of royalty, his purple Mardi Gras beads shimmer in the stage lights. Strutting into "Raw Power" early in the set and slipping effortlessly into "Subway" moments later.

His entire band, flawless, keeping in sync in every way, like a group of jazz players that have been together for decades, the group put on a show worthy of the Hollywood Bowl at Downtown's Mayan. It was, as he always is, perfection incarnate.

We last saw his guitarist Mark Thwaite surprise fans when he jumped on stage with Imperative Reaction at Das Bunker. We thought we remembered then how tight of a player he was, but tonight he proved our high estimates still fall short.

Peter Murphy was playful, charming and graceful enough to make a girl swoon:

Timothy Norris

Swoooooon: Peter Murphy