Rock on Pt. 2

Welcome to the second installment of my Rocktacular rant. In the previous spittle fuelled narkogram I dealt with topics as fantastic as The guitar solo, LVS and the fantacular Rock beard, something I have since decided to grow since I wrote that little piece.

And now, I shall begin, at the beginning as they say and we shall roll onto the second part of my tightened panty rant.

Theatrics

What is a rock and roll show? When people went to see Dylan in the sixties and saw a scrawny chap with a big honker and a whiney voice (relax Dylan fans the man is a legend) singing with his acoustic guitar trying his damnedest to impersonate Woodie Guthrie were they rocked out? Did they leave in a sweaty mass jumping up, fist in the air with the sound of rock and roll in their ears? Did they jiggery. They left in a haze of smoke to return to their “camp” and eat Tofu burgers and talk about JP Satré.

Now all that is well and good, not everyone needs to have their brain taken out, put in a blender and popped back in, but for those of us who do, we have the rock and roll show. I understand a lot of people will say “but it should be about the music”, I say Bollocks to that. Elvis Presley was essentially just an entertainer, infact, 50% of his songs are complete horseshit, but when he sung them, and swayed those hips, people were moved. And the ladies – well – we all know they loved the king.

Move over rover, and let Jimi...burn everything to bits

“It’s all pyrotechnics and lights now”. Shut your fucking face, even in the 80’s when that kind of thing was at its peak, bands were rocking harder than ever. Dave Lee Roth didn’t get a pyrotechnical whizz to make him hop up with his legs akimbo did he? Fair enough, Bon Jovi had the bungee chords into the crowd and I’m sure there were 100’s of god-awful rockers in the 80’s (Mr. Big I’m looking at you) who did similar things to “reach the crowd” but all in the name of entertainment dammit.
I have to be honest, I love Journey, but what would Journey be without the big production? The rock stance – pretending your guitar is a machine gun and shooting the crowd with it, it’s all cracking stuff.

Look at Kiss, enormous in the USA, never really bothered with Europe (because they didn’t have to) but a KISS show was more make up than guitar licks, more fake blood than a George Romero movie, and more balls than ballsy thing.
Some theatrics are provided out of the big show mentality, creating a rock show that has more in common with Barnum circus than rock and roll, and others are clearly borne out the need to destroy or the pure vast intake of narcotica.

Jimi Hendrix setting his fender strat alight and then worshipping the flames, or Pete Townshend literally knocking seven shades of shit out of all the equipment on stage much to the relaxed bemused of the onlooking Ox.
Ozzy Biting the head of anything that was thrown onstage, Axl Rose starting a riot in St.Louis, Mike Patton drinking piss from a shoe, Jim Morrison in general, all these things are indelibly sewn into the great tapestry of rock and roll, and whether it’s a stage show or a band you’ve come to see, they all wind up spilling onto the same page.

I have one more part of this rant left in me, tune in next week rock lovers!

(sorry)