Band: The Mission
Album title: The Final Chapter
Label: Eyes Wide Shut Recordings – Extreme Music Distribution
Distributor: SPV - CNR
Release date: 02/03/2009
Release: CD

Well, there you have it…as suggested by the title of this DVD, The Mission is no more, having played their last shows at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire venue on four consecutive evenings in late February and March 1st of last year! The idea had come from the venue’s owner, whom suggested the band play these four evenings (each night concentrating on a different album from the band’s beginning years) when The Mission played their gig in support of the band’s latest studio album (the sublime God Is A Bullet; review by yours truly posted 22/03/2007) at his place. As main man Wayne Hussey had become disappointed with the audience’s attendance (or lack thereof, because The Mission had played several shows of their 2007 European tour at out-of-the-way places, sometimes in front of a mere 50 people), he pondered over the idea for a while, and then felt it would be a good way to have a last blast, taking The Mission off the circuit on a high.

So, the decision was made to have a last tour in Europe during February, with a set-list that varied every night and was concentrated on songs the band normally didn’t feel so confortable with on stage [in stead of having to promote a new album (of which they nevertheless did some occasional songs), the band played songs the audience wasn’t used of hearing, but which the band liked a lot…thus enhancing the fun factor for the band members]…and then end it all in London! Miraculously (and the “farewell” factor certainly was important here), the European dates [which took the bands through Belgium (1 gig), France (2 gigs), Spain (4 gigs), Italy (4 gigs), Croatia (1 gig), Hungaria (1 gig), Austria (1 gig) and Germany (4 gigs)] for this farewell tour were all well attended. And at about half a dozen of these shows, former The Mission guitarist Simon Hinkler joined the band on stage. Growing towards those events, someone felt it right to start documenting some of the backstage hapenings with a portable camera. Evidently, the last gigs simple hàd to be recorded…and in fact there was audio material recorded on éach of those last nights! Those recordings were already released in the form of 4 separate CDs during April 2008, and around the same time Hussey released his first solo album Bare.

But right now we have this DVD, the main feature of which is the band’s final gig on March 1st, 2008! I have to say, a lot of people wanted to be there, some travelling thousands of miles for the occasion (people not came from all over the UK and Europe, but also from Brazil, Argentina, Canada…), and many of ‘em attending all four London shows as well! In other words, the Shepherds Bush Empire waspackedtothegills each and every! DVD 1 contains the first part of the band’s set that evening (63 ½ minutes, including encores) and as promised, the setlist contais the complete Fourth album of the band, 1990’s Carved In Sand, plus a couple of tracks (“Hands Across The Ocean”, “Bird Of Passage”) off the same year’s Grains Of Sand (which was a collection of songs that didn’t make it onto the CIS album. For the last three songs of the set befóre the encores, Hinkler joins the band on stage (obviously greated by the audience, who’d been used to see him come to the stage from the evenings before). After those first 12 tracks, the band leaves the stage, only to come back rather swiftly with the fivesome being fortified by guest musicians Miles Hunt (acoustic guitar, of Wonder Stuff fame) and Erica Nockalls (viola – don’t know her, really) for renditions of “Like A Child Again” (off 1992’s Masque album) and the Kinks cover “Mr. Pleasant” (also brought on the Grains Of Sand album), for which The Mission manager George Allen was back on the stage to play the keyboards (he’d already contributed earlier on a couple of songs). At the end of this DVD, Hussey lets the audience know the band will be back in a while…for a second part of the farewell show, because obviously the band was not gonna restrict themselves to playing only material off one album each evening, you know!?!

DVD 2 sees the band return to material which they’d obviously already played during the first two nights, including 6 tracks off the debut album (1986’s God Own’s Medicine), 2 off the second (1987’s The First Chapter), and two off the third (1988’s Children)…plus one off 1995’s Neverland (“Afterglow”), and the two songs which The Mission never recorded on a studio album, but which have been live staples since their beginning years (the Stooges’ “1969”, and “Shelter From the Storm” of which I don’t even know what the origins are). Like durinng the first part of the evening, the band leaves the stage after having played somewhat over an hour, to return after a short break for another threesome of encore songs…with Hinkler joining to play second guitar again! Well, actually the band returns again afterwards! They’d already started their afterparty, and clearly didn’t want to end the evening at that, returning to the stage to treat the audience (which was still tightly in place, not wanting to let go the band that “easily” either) to “Wasteland” and “Serpent’s Kiss” (the band’s first two singles released on the Chapter 22 label, prior to the God’s Own Medicine full-length)…but that footage was kept apart for DVD 3. Apparently the compilers of the DVD found that 87:20 was long enough on this 2nd concert disc!

Which is funny, because DVD 3 in this package lasts a total of 3 hours and 28 minutes! I mean, in these days of crisis and labels seeking all kinds of means to cut on production costs, I find it amazing that the label didn’t decide to put the concert bit onto one disc (which would’ve made for some 3 hours of footage altogether, allowing for some additional in-between passages)! Anyways…DVD 3 contains 5 sub-menus: “Rehearsals” (a 32 ½ documentary recorded during the rehearsals the band did during January 2008 in prepararion for the tour), “On The Road With The  Mission” (with a lingth of almost 75 minutes, the bulk of the DVD, with footage from about every venue in Europe the band was on during the last show, backstage footage, on stage footage snippets, on the road footage…), “Köln Live Music Hall, Köln, Germany” (full-length footage of the band playing “Kingdom Come”, “Beyond The Pale”, and “Garden Of Delight” at this German gig), the aforementioned “Aftershow Party”, and eventually the “Interviews” section. Interviewed by Miles Hunt (remember him?), you get a total of four interviews, the longest (22 ½ minutes) of which (evidently) with Hussey. Then there’s one (just over 8 minutes) with Hinkler, with the band (meaning guitarist Mark Gemini Twaithe, bassist Richard Vernon, and drummer Steve Spring; also just over 8 minutes), and the fans (just over 13 minutes; the first two and the last recorded befóre the last show, the one with the band recorded just àfter that gig).

A very nice package, but I wonder…will there now be DVDs from the other three final days as well? You know, I guess that’s very much a possibility! So, since this is a DVD, I don’t have to rate the release, but I dó wanna say the quality of both sound and images is very, very good indeed, and apart from the small detail I mentioned earlier, it’s rather well put together! Last thoughts…is this really the end for The Mission? I mean, the band’s known plenty of line-up changes in the past (Hussey being the only constant), and they hàve split up before (in 1996, only to come back in ’99…but that’s recorded history). Hussey will certainly be able to play some of his favourite The Mission songs on his solo concerts/ tours…but will that really be enough for him? Or can we expect the band to be reformed again in a couple of years…like for the 25th anniversary of the band, for instance…which is not even that far away?

Tony.