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A Brief Overview
The Sisters of Mercy are a rock band that came out of the British post punk scene in 1980-1981.
The band cited Leonard Cohen, The Stooges, Suicide and Motörhead as among their influences. The group has made three original studio albums, of which the last was released in 1990. In 1992 followed, however, a compilation album featuring the early singles, and in 1993 their Greatest Hits Vol. 1 album was launched, which included their last track ever released under an official record company contract Under The Gun.
Since then, the band is kept alive as a touring outfit. The only original member to survive the band's lineup changes is singer and songwriter Andrew Eldritch (even Doktor Avalanche, the drum-machine, is not an original member). All of the other original members had left the group by 1985, the same year as their first studio album, First And Last And Always, was released. At the time of the second Sisters album, the majestic Floodland (1987), The Sisters were essentially a studio-bound outfit, although by the time of Vision Thing (1990) Eldritch had again formed a fully-working band to take the album on the road. That incarnation was relatively short-lived. However, the band have been touring regularly with stable long-time varieties of personnel ever since and currently includes Dylan Smith and Ben Christo on guitars as well as Ravey Davey on nurse duties to The Doktor, while Chris Catalyst is involved in other duties this year. Another album release seems ... err, possible indeed ...;-)) ...
The Sisters of Mercy are one of the most popular and influential bands among the gothic rock scene, although since the late 1980s Eldritch has tried to disassociate both himself and the band from that scene.
Recent Events
In 2011, The Sisters embarked on their SISTERS XXX 30th Stage Anniversary Tour all over Europe, including a long-due gig at Fuji Rock Festival, Japan and an additional series of first performances in New Zealand and Australia.
The latter were postponed, however, to February/March 2012 and then followed by a further three gigs in Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico) which ended the SISTERS XXX 30th Stage Anniversary festivities.
Summer 2012 saw two festival appearances in Belgrade, Serbia and Cologne, Germany, while 2013 remained a year of early announced and happy silence.
On January 21st, 2014, The Sisters of Mercy tweet-notified the world of their gig at Sonisphere Festival 2014 at Knebworth Park. What follwed was a tour of 17 gigs to Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe, Benelux in May, and to England, Scotland and Ireland in July, ending in a festival performance at Zottegem, Belgium.
In 2015, The Sisters of Mercy played a festival gig on August 1st at Suikerrock Festival, Tienen, Belgium and went on a short, but brilliant tour scheduled for Scotland, England, Belgium, Germany and Greece in October (and December) 2015. The year 2016 was marked by the Europe Spring Tour in March, some Summer gigs in August and Septempber, and another short tour of the UK and Beligium in November, which ended in a Near Meth Experience performance at the fundraising event for former Doktor's nurse Si Denbigh.
2017 saw The Sisters of Mercy travel all over Europe again, including Switzerland, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Austria, Luxembourg and three highly appreciated concerts in Sweden. A gig @Barby Club, Tel Aviv marked the end of that tour. 2018 passed without any Sisters' gig.
The European Summer Festival Tour 2019 welcomed The Sisters' new guitarist Dylan Smith. This was followed by two gigs in Greece and a surprise concert of Near Meth Experience in Antwerp on September 16th in preparation for the worldwide club tour titled National Treasure Tour 2019. For details please check our Current Events page and/or The Sisters of Mercy's Official Live News Page.
Special Announcements - Fans for Fans:
A biography book and a volume of photographs about The Sisters of Mercy
The long-awaited Sisters biography written by Mark Andrews is in its final stages for release in the form of a pledge campaign. The crowdfunding campaign has meanwhile reached its goal and the book is currently in the process of writing. Nonetheless, everybody is of course still welcome to join, especially since there are some interesting additional items on offer.
Paint My Name In Black And Gold
The book concentrates on the first five years of The Sisters of Mercy and will be published by Unbound. It will also be available in ebook format. Details about the pledge campaign, the book and some further items, regular updates and links to interim Sisters-related articles by Mark Andrews are available @The Heartland Forums and/or here.
You really shouldn't miss it!!!
Apart from the above-mentioned biography, long-term Sisters aficionado and Heartland Forum member My Dominion, who also has been operating a Sisters-related website under the same name for decades, has now compiled the best of his photographs into a beautiful volume of 128 pages titled
10 Years of www.mydominionnl.com 2005 - 2015
A first edition of 50 books has already been offered to the fanbase at a very reasonable fan-to-fan cost, but was soon out of stock. Now a second edition is underway to comfort and accommodate those, who were also interested but sadly missed this exceptional volume full of extraordinary concert photos with The Sisters of Mercy taken and collected during a full decade of gigs all over Europe. For further details and a few insights of the book and how to order it, please check this thread @The Heartland Forums or directly with the My Dominion fansite.
Further Information
External Links
NOTE: The SistersWiki is not on facebook, Twitter or any other social media forums. Insofar, references to external pages on any such forums are only made,
if these are available to the general public. This is in no way an evaluation or quality assessment of any such page, but based on the logical conclusion that
we cannot trustfully link to what we ourselves cannot see!
Official Pages
Sisters Forums
- Thesistersofmercy.zikforum - The first French-language Sisters forum - still present but not active
- My Dominion NL - The Sisters Of Mercy fan site (and Dutch-speaking forum) - the forum is closed, but the fan site is still actiive
Other Sisters (Fan) Sites
- The Sisters Of Mercy Image Gallery - (part of the Heartland forums)
- Glasperlenspiel - the most recent officially endorsed Sisters fanzine, last issue 2003
- I Was A Teenage Sisters of Mercy Fan - a very lovely and interesting blog
- Sisters Tours - extensive setlists, reviews, overviews and interviews from Sisters concerts
- The Sisters of Mercy Database v0.5 Beta - an extensive database on tours, setlists, venues, the band ... updated until 2003
- THE REPTILE HOUSE EP LYRICS - exactly what it says, no more and no less
- PiB Sisters Reference Site - an informative site about existing Sisters recordings up to 2009
- sistersbootlegs - information on all kinds of bootlegs, videos, books, etc.
- The Sisters of Mercy Ultimate Resource Guide - the one and only ... updated to 2009
- a lovely comprehensive Polish language Sisters site - gone ...: - ( ... however HERE COME THE GOLDEN OLDIES ...: - ))...
- First And Last Archive - recently invented, still growing press archive on the early days of The Sisters of Mercy
- The Sisters of Mercy Discography @discogs - very extensive information about official and non-official releases
