If I rock upon the waves
SO. The Pogues. I stood in the cold for an hour. The people in line around me were chatting a little and I eavesdropped a lot. I talked to them a little about getting a spot up front, and they warned me that it could be fairly rough. I was stupid and wasn't wearing a hat or scarf (yes, I know. But I had wanted to travel lightly, what if I didn't make it up front?) and I had my hair in clips so my ears were painfully cold. They finally opened the doors, and I was in the first 20 inside the venue. The Roseland is pretty big (though I don't know comparatively). There is a huge wooden floor, the sound booth is in the middle of it towards the back. You enter at the back left, the bar and merchandise stuff is all along the back, and then at the back right are the stairs down to the coat check and bathrooms. Along the left side (and the back maybe?) is the mezzanine seating, this little balcony ledge with arched brick walls. It looked nice up there actually. Not a bad place to watch from, and it had kind of a secret alcovey feel. I ignored all of this and dashed up to the rail, where there were only about 10 people. I scored a spot just right of center, where there was a gap in the onstage monitors. There were a couple of nice looking people on my right, so I put my coat over the rail, asked them to guard it, and dashed to the bathroom. I'm very glad I took care of that, I don't think I would have made it through the concert if I hadn't. Then came the waiting. It's funny, though, the longer you wait, the faster time goes. When I was outside, I looked at my phone every 5 minutes, and it felt like 20, at first, but towards the end it seemed like three. Inside I had another hour's wait that really went by pretty quickly. Finally, the Tossers went on. The lead singer got up, made his little intros and whatnot, saying Happy St. Patrick's day, blahdy blah. And then he summed up everyone's feeling by saying "Tonight is going to be the greatest night of my entire life" in a beautiful Irish accent, and then swinging into the first song. I certainly liked them, but� I don't know. The songs all kind of blended into each other. There were crazy people moshing behind me that got a little rowdy (okay, yes, I realize, moshing IS rowdy. But what I mean is that it was rowdy for moshing. A lot of people fell down. They had a space cleared for it, but everyone three layers of people away was banged around.) There's a passage in The Time Travelers Wife- "Of course," says Henry, pushing back his chair, "some people, me included, believe that punk is just the most recent manifestation of this, this spirit, this feeling, you know, that things aren't right and that in fact things are so wrong that the only thing we can do is to say Fuck It, over and over again, really loud, until someone stops us." So, okay, yes, I get this. But I think the Irish Rebel Music last night, and the Pogues, and branching out, the Violent Femmes and the Clash etc etc on and on, are so much � better at it. There's general, fairly pointless anger, and then there's the stirring, angry, poignant, emboldening music, and I feel like the Tossers are really trying to be in the second category, but too much of their music is blurred, too noisy. That said, there were a couple of songs that stood out, and I liked listening to them, they did a great live show, and I gladly took one of the cd's that was being handed out after the show. Granted, it was free. No matter.
After they left the stage you could feel the excitement start to really grow. The space that had opened for the moshers closed up completely. I took off my sweater and could barely move my arms to do that (but I am so glad I did. 1- because it got pretty warm, but 2- I laid it over my coat, and so it soaked up the beer occasionally splattered down. I'd rather wear a beer-y sweater for a night, and then wash it the next day than have to dry clean my coat right now). There was kind of low random music on in the background, but then all of a sudden, there was something that sounded familiar. It took me and my hearing a second to recognize it, but it was the Clash's 'Straight to Hell', and I realized a second later that most of the crowd was singing it. What a great lead in. The lights dimmed, and the Pogues took the stage. Shane was wheeled out, and the crowd went wild. He said (in his fabulous blurred way that I wish I could communicate in writing, but I'm not even going to try) "Happy St. Patricks day. Cheers," took a big swallow of water, "this is called If I should Fall From Grace With God" and the band swung right into it. Oh my god. I couldn't breath for a minute, it was so beautiful and fantastic and big and heart wrenching. Shane had a fan in front of him, so he's sitting there in his wheelchair, stool with a cup and a bottle of wine (though I think it was actually water, he poured some in his mouth towards the end and it was pretty pale, even for white wine), with his hair blowing back a little, and his eyes nearly shut and his mouth kind of sunken and funny from all his missing teeth. And oh my god he sounded amazing. From all reports I hadn't expected to be able to understand it, but I think it was maybe even clearer than the cd's I have. And the music! Oh, god the music! was so full of life and the band was fantastic and I was in front on Spider Stacy (whistle and vocals) and Darryl Hunt (bass) and they were hamming it up. I forget who plays accordion, but he was awesome and running all over the place. At one point Shane was taking a sip of water and didn't quite have time to swallow it before the next verse started, so in one breath, one motion he just spit it out and started singing. So casual. He is, as someone behind me said 'so fucking cool'. He kind of has this attitude of "fucking hell, this is all bloody ridiculous. Everyone's fucking ridiculous" it's hard to explain, but he did all these cute performing things, like doing a big 'awwww' face and gesture when someone threw red roses onstage. Like, a reaction of genuine gratitude would be stupid, because it would essentially be disingenuous because you only do it because you're trained to, so he does an exaggerated show of emotion, which simultaneously mocks the reaction he 'should' have, and admits to the fact that he maybe is touched by the gesture. Like- 'this world and societal expectations are total bullshit, but goddamn they're amusing, aren't they?' He was just a ton of fun to watch. As were the other guys in the band. Spider in particular was enjoying himself. Darryl looked at me and smiled a couple of times. Shane blew a kiss to my half of the front audience. They did two encores. They did a few songs without Shane. Spider sang Tuesday Morning (one of my favorites) and did a lovely job.
My ribs are totally bruised up from the rail. I got shoved around a good deal there, but it was fine. The lame part was when people either got kicked out, or wanted out, and security would hoist them out, pulling them over our heads. I only got kicked in the head once, though, and not badly.
There's a really great article written about them a while ago. It's pretty long, but the last paragraph is pretty perfect-
The words tumble and catch, the tunes grip, the band plays and being Irish in the 21st Century makes a sense denied me in those long years past in Ireland itself. This is the noise of a connected Ireland, not an insular frightened ghetto of the head by a people inside or outside who define themselves within a world that is not a small island off the western shores of Europe. It is everywhere and everybody is welcome to come in. It�s the Ireland I imagined and was desperate for a long time ago now. It is the noise of the always outside who have no desire to come in save on their terms. It�s cultural revolution stuff. A great reclaiming from those who made it by those whom it was made for. Great words. Great music. Great band. Great art.
Bob Geldof, August 2004
I've been struggling a little lately with cultural identity. Just writing that sentence makes me think "oh good grief, get over yourself, who cares". But it's still there. Growing up, I was all about being Irish. I had an Irish flag in my room, I used to have a Celtic knot necklace, yadda yadda. Then I kind of gave that up. I'm only a 16th Irish, who am I to claim it? I got back in touch with my grandparents and started thinking a little more about my Jewish half. I'm mainly Russian and Polish, and look a little more like that than anything else. Living here, I'm close to my Jewish family. Two of my new friends are Jewish, and being me I hate being left out of anything, so I try to claim that part of me, even though I don't have much of the cultural background. But then, I live in Sunnyside. I hear Irish accents every day here. On the one hand, it draws me back towards that, and on the other I feel so outside of it. The American dilemma, I suppose. We want to be part of something because cultural ties have gotten so muddied that we have nothing. Maybe? I don't know. The point is, when Geldof says, "It is everywhere and everybody is welcome to come in. It�s the Ireland I imagined and was desperate for a long time ago now." it helps. I feel like, yeah, I can claim this, I can be a part of it, because it's not just a country, it's a feeling, it's a connection of spirit, for lack of a better word at the moment.
In anycase- Saturday, March 17th 2007 is in the running for the best night of my life. I will see them again, every chance I get. I now understand why there were people who went to several shows on this tour.
