Rubicon in concert tonight – recorded live in concert at Essen, Germany on November 30, 1992.
Sadly, there’s not much known about this band, other than they are a sort of stopping-off place between Fields Of Nephilim and Last Rites, two highly influential bands of the Goth genre to which Rubicon fits right in the middle.
Rubicon came about when Fields of Nephilim ground to a halt in 1991, when the Carl McCoy, frontman for the band left, leaving the remaining members, and new singer Andy Delaney to fend for themselves and figure out what to do next. Rather than continue under their old name, they formed under a new one, Rubicon. When Carl McCoy wanted to take Fields of the Nephilim in a new direction, the rest of the band disagreed. Thus, Carl formed the Nefilim while the rest of the band got a new vocalist in the form of Andy Delany and became Rubicon.
Rubicon released two albums and a number of singles before collapsing and news of a FoTN reformation. However, this failed to materialize and the Wright brothers are now in Last Rites, while Tony Petitt is NFD with Simon Rippin from the Nefilim/Sensorium and Peter ‘Bob’ White from Sensorium. Peter Yates guests on NFD’s album.
The result was a four year tenure with two albums and an ep before calling it quits in 1996. The brothers Wright, the two holdovers from Nephilim and now Rubicon, went on to form Last Rites and the saga continues from there. Last Rites are, from all appearances, still together. Fields of Nephilim regrouped and reformed in 1998 and have been carrying on ever since.
Needless to say, there’s not much in the way of performance recordings of Rubicon during this brief stay, this one being something of a rarity. It pretty much captures the intensity of the band, not least because the recording itself is heavily compressed and that adds to the intensity of the proceedings.
I think it’s safe to say that Andy Delaney delivers a stunning performance.
Crank it up and give it a listen.
