“It was like I was [Enrico] Caruso or something,” recalls Peter Murphy of his Aug. 12 show during his New York residency at Le Poisson Rouge last year. That evening’s performance was a blur, yet he vividly remembers feeling as if he were floating through one of the last songs in some kind of operatic flash. “All I remember was this wonderful, transcendent experience of ‘Creme De La Creme.’”
Several weeks prior to the nearly monthlong set of shows last summer, Murphy remembers feeling more fatigued but never experienced any deep chest pains until the night before the show — centered on his ninth album, Ninth — when he felt a gripping cramp in his left forearm that eventually moved to both of his arms, then all over, following sound check.’
“People want to naturally deny what is going on because they’re afraid,” he says. “It’s irony. People break their back and get up and say, ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ but they’re not. I said, ‘Something is going on here. This is classic heart stuff, isn’t it?’”
Tina Eves 