Catherine Wheel, Geneva, Feline

Tradewinds, Sea Bright, NJ.....

Catherine Wheel exploded onto the music world in 1992 with a 7-minute rock opus called "Black Metallic." This song synthesized the dance-rock of the Stone Roses, the moody riffing of Sisters of Mercy, and the simplified indie coarseness of the Jesus & Mary Chain into one epic expression of loosely-opaque lyrics. Its effect was anthemic on the alt-rock crowd, still reeling in the months after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has dashed previous anthems to splinters.

The band recognized the power of returning to full volume after its 90-second breakdown section, which stripped everything down to drums plus a little lead guitar and vocal noodling. The crashing conclusion of this breakdown was the song's secret weapon, the stunning amendment to the dance-rock Constitution put forth by the Stone Roses and ultimately the missing ingredient to "Fools Gold."

I never had a chance to see the band live during the years immediately following their debut album, Ferment, but I did catch them after their fourth album, Adam and Eve.

And though they had several more albums of material to draw from by that point, the emotional and musical pinnacle was still the same. The band concluded their set with a mind-blowing 13-and-a-half-minute rendition of "Black Metallic."

I clocked it, curious to see if they would equal the curio of David Bowie's "Station to Station"--a song which was longer in studio form that in the live recreation. On the contrary, Catherine Wheel drew out the song like experts, stretching it as taut and dangerously-cocked as a rubber band. Not only did no one lose an eye but the band herded the stunned audience right up to the cliff of bombast without going over.

It was thrilling.

Before the show, the band did a meet & greet for WHTG staff and contest winners. The picture, above, is from that get-together. I'm top center in the black FM 106.3 shirt, two persons right of Catherine Wheel frontman Rob Dickinson. Next to me, in the red shirt, is then-WHTG Program Director and midday host T.J. Bryan. The red-headed bloke at left in the white FM 106.3 shirt is DJ Chris Mailley, and Promotions Director Jon Vena is behind Chris.