So. Whilst waiting for the Bad Seeds concert to start the F-word and I sat in a nearby park, eating chips with samurai mayonnaise and talking about Roswell and Scientology. And I was wondering what possesses people to believe the most far-fetched things, to become absolutely credulous and devout later in life - not as a malleable, impressionable child with your parents forever dragging you to church and carefully indoctrinating you, but as a mature person who surely knows better, and who has money and a standing in civil society, and who gives it up for creepy strangers who appear to be absolutely fucking insane.
A half hour later in Forest National (shitty venue - only bother with it if you know you're going to like the act), I sat in the audience, waiting for the show to start and thinking about how fucking rich Nick Cave must be. Rich as a rich Scientologist. I had paid about Euro 40 for the tickets, and there were roughly a kabillion people there, which means he was making 40 x 1 kabillion, minus costs, which according to my new Japanese abacus is still north of a kabillion. I had a moment of cursing myself for not having been a rock star; I could have retired by now.
And an hour later in Forest National, I sat in the audience, watching the show and wondering if there was a way to throw my entire cunt on to the stage - forget the underwear. So I suppose I got an answer to my earlier question.
I've said before there's a risk that if I'd been me 150 years ago, I might've have tossed everything to docilely tail around Nick Cave or Tom Waits, if they'd have been itinerant preachers. Now I reckon I know why, and it's all in the term 'charismatics'. It's fascination, a chance to forget yourself; a good charismatic is charismatic because he sets the example and makes it safe. Even when Nick Cave was younger his persona had lots of crazy old man in it. Now it's vastly crazy old man. Screaming. Writhing. With a boner. And you don't know where to look, so you look at him, and before you know it, you're wondering if there's a way to throw your cunt on the stage, and you've already gone over April's disposable income budget to even be there.
So it was lovely and semi-religious. But of course it wouldn't have worked if the music hadn't been very good and if the band wasn't picking up the melodic and rhythmic slack whilst Nick Cave was moaning at the audience and abridging some of my favourite verses. (Time constraints? Dotty memory? Wanting to wrap up sooner and go to bed early, and thinking the non-Anglo audience probably wouldn't notice?) Two drummers! It was loud, and that was good, though Forest's sound isn't so good.
They played most of the last album, which was also good as I like the last album a lot, and then a few old favourites. Audience were dead fish during the loud songs, except for 'Papa Won't Leave You, Henry', which I guess not even dead fish can resist. They waved lighters for the tinkly ones. I was happy about the 'Stagger Lee' and the 'Tupelo' - the latter of which I hadn't liked much before hearing it live and very loud. I wished they played 'No Pussy Blues', but they didn't, and 'The Curse of Millhaven', but I knew they wouldn't as they were keeping every rendition to five minutes or less. The whole thing was just too fucking short. But sweet.
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