I’d really been looking forward to this gig. I’d previously seen Front 242 way back in 1993 (GIG 137) where they really impressed me live. Shame I had to wait four years before seeing them again but it was Saturday night and I was in a crammed Shepherds Bush Empire waiting for one of the pioneering groups of the Industrial music scenes to take to the stage.

First up was a British band called Empirion. I had a few singles from Empirion and really liked their industrial-techno sound. They were reasonably well known for remixing tracks for a variety of artists such as The Prodigy (Firestarter), Front 242 (Headhunter), Fluke (Bullet) and Terrorvision (Bad Actress), probably more so than their own work. One of their tracks, “Narcotic Influence”, had been a favourite track of mine for a couple of years but I never thought I’d ever see the band live. So the fact they were the opening act here was fantastic news for me. But what would they actually be like live? All I can say is WOW. Empirion were fantastic and completely blew me away. They could have been a headliner such was the power and brilliance of their set and their energy. They went down as one of the best live acts I saw in 1997 and right up there across the decades. I would have loved to have seen them again but unfortunately one of their members (Bob Glennie) was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1998 and they went on indefinite hiatus, with Glennie passing in 2005. I am so pleased I managed to see them live atleast once. They deserved to be so much bigger.

Whilst I’d never seen Empirion before, this was the eighth time I saw Cubanate. Back in 94/95 when I saw them a few times they were excellent – powerful and energetic – but the last three times I had seen them (once in ’96, and twice over the summer of ’97 supporting The Sisters of Mercy) they had felt decidedly lacklustre. Unfortunately they seemed even worse on this occasion. Maybe coming on after the sheer brilliance of Empirion didn’t help, but I was really disappointed with them.

Front 242 hadn’t released a new album since the last time I saw them in 1993 (when they released both “06:21:03:11 Up Evil” and “5:22:09:12 Off” so the set was a mix of hits and classic tracks. I had loved them back in 1993 and thought they were brilliant live – and thankfully they still were. They played a blinding set and were on par with the best bands I saw in 1997. So between Empirion and Front 242 this was an absolutely blinding gig!