“We’ve played that song 5,000 times, and we’ll play it 5,000 more,” frontman Cy Curnin said drily after The Fixx finished their trademark track “One Thing Leads to Another” at Avalon Ballroom on Tuesday evening. Though his devil-may-care quips were amusing–and coupled with some of the most eccentric dance moves I’ve witnessed to date–I’m guessing that some of them might have been fueled by the fact that his band was opening for the Furs. At the other end of the spectrum were the night’s openers, The Alarm: Mike Peters, who was happy to be back on tour after winning a battle with cancer a few years past, was as cheerful and radiant as Curnin was dour and devil-may-care. It appeared that Peters’ attitude and not Curnin’s mirrored most of the audience’s appreciation of the show; by the end of the night, however, I found myself identifying with Curnin’s skepticism.

The Psychedlic Furs started their set with a sax-filled, pile-driving rendition of “Heartbeat,” only slightly occluded by frontman Richard Butler’s strange arrangement of his hands into a rhombus shape just above his crotch as he gyrated suggestively. Up next was “Into You Like a Train,” during which the cacophony of Richard Butler’s vocals versus the controlled drive of Tim Butler’s bass and Roger Morris’ guitar, undercut by the melodic interjections of Mars Williams’ saxophone and bell tones from Amanda Kramer’s keyboards, gave me goosebumps. But once the band launched into “Love My Way,” followed by “The Ghost In You,” something seemed a little off–namely, Butler’s beat. The background music was so perfect and loud that the intro to “The Ghost in You” brought tears to my eyes, but, slightly out of synch on the slower songs, Richard Butler sounded less like a post-punk-to-pop noisemaster and more like–Lord forgive me–a karaoke singer.

For all of his enthusiasm, Butler was somewhat out of control, and a few other details–his frenetic dancing; his random bestowals of hugs on fellow bandmembers, and the frequent wiping of his nose with his sleeve–made me start to suspect that he was coked up beyond belief. Watching his antics proved alternately fascinating and sad, and sometimes a bit too intense; I closed my eyes intermittently. Other than the occasional “thank you” or band member introduction, Richard Butler rarely spoke between sets, choosing instead to turn his back on the crowd and kneel briefly by the drum kit. I started to wonder if he was doing lines onstage, a la Greg Dulli’s amp usage in his pre-rehab days.

It’s not that Butler didn’t engage with the audience at all: he grinned at them a lot, and frequently swept the front row with a series of rockstar-style handshakes. But beyond such stage persona gestures, there was little depth to his performance–a severe disappointment from a musician obviously capable of artistic complexity. Excepting his brief vigils next to the drum kit and the moments where he draped his arms over the bent mic stand as if he were hanging in the stocks (okay, this was a bit amusing, considering that the tour was called “Rocking the Colonies”), Butler rarely stopped moving. Still, one of my friends maintains that all cocaine really does is make one act like a more hyperbolic version of oneself. Maybe she’s right… or maybe Richard Butler’s melding with his stage persona is actually an attempt to reconnect with his art. From “Heaven”:

“There’s a song on the air with a love-you line
And a face in the glass and it looks like mine”

Mirror Moves, indeed.

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