Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
Suffice to say, the most interesting point in the show (up until we left anyway),
was when one of the ‘Johns’ ripped off his headgear in full view
and tried frantically (and unsuccessfully) to detach his ‘John’
placard (which admittedly must have been quite an encumbrance), before replacing
his mask skew-wiff with one given to him by one of the harried roadies and being
the odd man out from that point on.
I wondered if that would cause ructions after the show. Would he have been fined
for breaking ranks? Would there be an acrimonious band meeting the next week?
Bill and I left after about an hour (during the ‘Wanker’ song),
and as well as feeling bloody leg-weary, I felt perplexed – mainly at
my own reaction to the show. A couple of decades ago I might have been inspired
by some aspect of the performance, as I was when we came back from the UK to
find Skyhooks had emerged as a pop music force. That was something of a revelation.
Maybe I knew too much about TISM before I saw them; after all, they have been
around for a while. I dunno, I just felt detached and uninvolved – and
unmoved.
As a complete contrast, our manager Jenny and her peripatetic husband Allan,
(who’s back in the country for a few minutes), very generously took me
to the Cyndi Lauper concert last night.
The concert was at the Concert Hall – the Hamer auditorium to be precise.
I’ve seen a few concerts there. It’s not a rock venue, but that‘s
OK; Cyndi is not a rock act. She’s a ‘mature pop artist’.
The show stared inauspiciously. The support act, More Crap To The Masses
(‘more crap’ was right – ‘to the masses’ in their
dreams), had the 50% of the audience that had ventured in wondering whether
they should walk straight back out again – and a steady stream of them
took that option.
We allowed them till they’d finished their third number before retreating
to the foyer. Cyndi later owned up to having chosen them. One can only imagine
she was dazzled by a well produced audition CD, or by the fact there were three
girls in the band and the singer was from New Mexico, or something like that.
Anyway, they stank.
When Cyndi hit the stage she did a very Brenda Lee version of Eta James’
At Last, pointedly conducting the band with drama and bravado, and
I thought we were in for a sophisticated show-casing of Ms Lauper’s musical
whatsit. Then my audient world came tumbling down. Cyndi made a calculated foray
into the audience – and everybody stood up! Why? Had they remained seated they
would have been able to see just as much of Ms Lauper, maybe even more.
I started to see red. Here was Cyndi Lauper in the Concert Hall, especially
designed for patrons to see the act of their choice in seated comfort. So, the
acoustics aren’t perfect, but that’s a whole different issue I won’t
go into right now, but otherwise it’s a perfectly fine venue to see a
sophisticated and mature pop show – and all I could see right now was a bunch
of mature arses.
I stood up. I sat down. I stood up again. Then Cyndi decided the issue by clambering
onto one of the speaker boxes, and everybody sat down.
I prayed this standing up thing was an aberration. It wasn’t, and by the
second or third time, I really got mad. (I should say at this point, I’m
normally a placid guy. It takes a lot to rile me. But this made me really mad
for some reason. I’m still wondering why precisely; I think it’s
partly because I love music in its many and various guises and I hate the experience
being sullied by thoughtless behaviour – especially thoughtless behaviour
en masse).
So, it was at this point that I really got mad. I decided to stand on my seat
to register my protest – which might ‘ve been more effective had the seat
not been the type that automatically folds up when you get off it.
I tried to stand up on the seat, and it decided to catapult me into the row
behind. I was barely able to resist this momentum by lamely half-standing, half-leaning
at a perilous angle, by this time apoplectic with rage.
It had the desired effect though. The people behind me punched me in the back
and yelled at me to get down – and I yelled some obscenity at them in
return and gratefully clambered back down.
Jenny was appalled and embarrassed, (I’m not sure if Allan was even awake
at this point), as I angrily tried to explain the reasons for my behaviour.
I did manage to calm down a bit and half-enjoy the rest of the concert. Cyndi’s
OK, (maybe not quite as good as she thinks she is), and the band was OK too,
although Cyndi made it plain on more than one occasion that it was definitely
a back-up band. Even the sound was pretty OK. But, despite Cyndi’s proclamations
it was ‘rock and roll’, rock and roll it wasn’t. She shouldn’t
have provoked the audience; rock and roll behaviour, sedate or not, just isn’t
appropriate to the venue.
Fundamentally it comes down to the Tyranny of Distance equation. To make a profit,
OS acts have to play where they’re told, even if they don’t match
the venue. (It just makes me even more grateful that I saw most of the packages
that came through in the ‘60s and early ‘70s: the Who, the Small
Faces, the ubiquitous Roy Orbison, the Walker Bros, the Animals, the Beatles,
the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Pretty Things, Eden Kane, Sandie Shaw
et al. Each band had a thirty-minute spot (if they were lucky), 30-watt amps
and a pissy little PA – the concerts were cheap and wonderful fun! And
if you had the temerity to stand up, the security would beat the crap out of
you. Hooray!)
If all that wasn’t bad enough, when I started thinking about us – about
me and Bill and Robbo and Jenny – I became even more despondent. ‘Maybe
it’s not rock and roll that’s dead – maybe it’s me’,
I thought. ‘Maybe those moments when the pub is rockin’, the band’s
pumping, and there’s a magical rapport between the band and the audience,
maybe it’s those moments that are the illusion. Maybe 99.99999% of the
public is right afterall and I’m wrong. It’s happened before’.
I’m coming out of the depression again. Writing it all down has been cathartic.
In the process I’ve come up with a fitting aphorism – particularly appropriate
to Spectrum’s career, as defined by our first and only hit. I should point
out that I can handle the concept of failure, because there’s nothing
inherently disgraceful in having failed at something worthwhile per se.
After all, people who ‘fail’ in their lifetimes are very often proven
right in the long run. It’s the immediate ramifications of failure that’s
the fucker. So, here’s the aphorism I devised that sums it all up:
The difference between success and failure is the money.
Or, crap pays. Whatever – you get the picture.
Send money.