Love and Rockets perform at Fox Theater in Oakland on May 21, 2023. Karen Goldman/STAFF.

OAKLAND — As Love and Rockets prepared to perform their second encore at Fox Theater Sunday night, nobody seemed able to find Daniel Ash’s acoustic guitar.

“Can we go acoustic, please?” bassist David J asked the audience and sound techs in a thick British accent. A moment later, the culprit, a dead battery, was replaced and strumming could be heard coming over the P.A. as Ash reappeared onstage to cheers. The trio ended its marathon performance with a delicate and sedate rendition of “Sweet F.A.” from the band’s 1996 album of the same name.

Fresh off a performance at Cruel World Festival in Pasadena on Saturday, the band, comprised of three-fourths of seminal goth rock group Bauhaus (minus vocalist Peter Murphy), kicked off a 14-date U.S. tour Sunday with an immersive and psychedelic performance that spanned its entire musical catalog.

The trio, all wearing sunglasses, took the stage to the angelic sounds of B-side “Angels and Devils” over the P.A. before launching into the haunting throb of “I Feel Speed” with both Ash and David J playing bass and Ash singing hypnotically as stars flickered, projected on the large backdrop. Fuzzed-out bass and stark red lighting signaled the intro to “No Big Deal.” The audience—aging, gray and swaddled in black denim and lace—swayed on the crowded floor.

Love and Rockets perform at Fox Theater in Oakland on May 21, 2023.

Attendees erupted with excitement at the overdriven power chords of “Kundalini Express” as the backdrop exploded with psychedelic technicolor lights and video footage of train tracks. Ash, dressed in red sequined blazer and frilly black pirate shirt, wowed with a powerful noise solo that melted faces as it devolved into sonic chaos.

Drummer Kevin Haskins, perched on an elevated riser, provided intensity and precision in equal measure. The pummeling drum part from “Dog End of a Day Gone By” and the almost Sabbath-like heaviness of “Judgment Day” both provided moments for him to shine. David J, clad in a burgundy velvet suit, conjured everything from overdriven growls to sumptuous low notes from his black Fender bass.

But the night’s best moments came with transcendent synergy, when the trio became more than the sum of its parts. The delicate pulse of “Haunted When the Minutes Drag” drew long, enthusiastic screams from the audience, which likely spent a lot of time yearning to that song in high school. As the song reached its anthemic chorus, the crowd joined Ash in singing the lines that had populated so many mixtapes to young love: “This is for when you feel happy/ And this is for when you feel sad/And this is for when you feel nothing.”

Love and Rockets perform at Fox Theater in Oakland on May 21, 2023.

Fans sang along with “No New Tale to Tell” from 1987’s Earth, Sun, Moon and “An American Dream” as Ash played an acoustic guitar. The band’s biggest hit, “So Alive,” from its 1989 self-titled album, used pre-recorded backing vocals, which filled out the relatively spartan arrangement as the infamous women’s legs from the original music video danced on the backdrop.

Love and Rockets’ first encore delivered some of the evening’s most frenetic energy with a rousing cover version of The Temptations 1970 song “Ball of Confusion,” which felt more eerily prescient amid our current global strife and struggle. At the end of the second encore, the band stood onstage and bathed in raucous applause.

Artist Vinasantos opened the show with a set of reverb-drenched piano ballads and snippets of entertaining stage banter about their struggles against homophobia.

Follow writer David Gill at Twitter.com/saxum_paternus. Follow photographer Karen Goldman at Twitter.com/Xposure120 and Instagram.com/karenshootsmusic.