my punk rock london life: March 2017

Sunday, March 5, 2017

THIS IS NOT THIS HEAT Barbican 3.4.2017

Left stunningly euphoric after the rock and roll at the Barbican last night [cough] ... in three parts. Charles Hayward's solo performance piece wholly present and moving... A film from 1987 by John Smith called The Black Tower (could have been made yesterday) ... An interval ... during which the young lady next to me told me she'd been given this random ticket by her dad - a psychiatric nurse - sitting down below us ... he'd been on a road trip during the day with friends (also here) to Canterbury and Dungeness and she mentioned Derek Jarman's garden.
And I mention our conversation because the landscape of Dungeness and the water rolling the flint and the strange sea cabbages and the nuclear power station that throbs like a fridge making ice isn't far off the landscape that invaded the sound energy from the stage when This is Not This Heat got going...
Especially "Not Waving"... the bell... the swimmer out at sea... was the lifeboat out looking? ... sounded like our swimmer wasn't hoping so... Drummer beyond compare, really, Charles Hayward and magician drummer Chris Butler along with a third percussionist, many guitars, three backing singers, a female singer who also played an instrument [i'm not sure, a synthesiser?], clarinets and i don't know what pedals and electronic bits... [I didn't catch everyone's name...] ... I couldn't stop myself being led out there beyond the mud and crocuses, cathedrals, coastline... maybe that acid I had 40 years ago is partly to blame i don't know...
Towards the end of the set, amongst the warriors on the stage... Thurston Moore...
The last song, "Go to sleep," was a beauty but it didn't come to a stop as the other pieces did ... this one kept its eyes open ... green searchlights pendulummed round and out amongst us with this crescendo that brought pilgrims to it's feet.
Afterwards somewhere in the carpeted complex that is the Barbican, walking through such a mixture of ages, and countries, and shoes, and such there was a DJ but we drifted out around the offices and lights on in London, a few sirens here and there ... saturday night... the car underground silent and lined up next to three silver Aston Martins ... drove over the black water of the Thames and looking up not stars but a hell of a lot of blues belting off towards the Kuiper belt... "Don't you love it when things come together?" We do. Thank you.

Video : Not Waving by Nervous Ice In Cheap Cola and SPQR by sonofanastronaut