Rear view
Phil Kay
While Motérhead threaten to split the sound barrier, Phil only has eyes for those moles.
ey. Lemmy entertain you. The neon is off so. as I
arrive. the Barrowlands Ballroom‘s frontage is like a
sepia betrayal of all I have yearned for as I drove down at speeds of upto. having only recently found out Lemmy is on at nine. nine-fifteen. Maybe this dimness is some kind of respect for the person being put in the ambulance. an excellent sign. an excellent sign. that things are already going hell for leather. liither that or they are surely not loading bodies into the tour-bus.
And I park around the back and press my ear up to the back corrugated wall of the Barras ground lloor and listen for Bass in some ninety degree twist on the Tracker listening for Indians‘ horses hooves‘ sounds technique. There it is. I hear the Bass so I nip round through the very exciting beeping threshold of detections owned by the men in yellow and run up and in.
I take the step from the plateau of recover where the St. Johns Rock lians stay and go into the arena. There I move across the whole room looking only at the faces of people watching Motorhead. I pass through pockets of sweet hashcloud and mentally grade the different quality levels that seem to spring to mind. Everyone has their chins raised just that bit up in the wash ofentertainment’s headlight.
Right down the front on the left. I am looking at Lemmy and he is one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen; sure. he is classically ugly with all the drawbacks of thin lips. witch-faced eyecheeks and Those Moles. but some transformation has been realised and he is gorgeous. Of course the real transformation is out of beauty into ugly; surely it is ugly that is rare. Surely it is here on stage. alive. thrilling thousands and shedding your shirt. surely that beauty is the norm.
At the beginning of every song. he plays a one-second condensed version of the song compressed into a highly dense all-riff. tiber-chord summation burst. And he does this with a grimace of distinct nature: like
John Fardell
before each number be kind of goes into character for the tune. like he came up with the tune as a way to represent these faces. ()n his beautiful face it just looked like it was so right. like a face has to have this purpose.
Lemmy sings up at the mike. and throughout the second half of the second half I was transfixed by his neck — his incredible neck — and felt that it looked so good that I understood why sculpture is so great: because it has the fantastic human neck to be recreating. It was so defined.
Anyway. the other highlights include: asking a man who shouted something like maybe a song title or in-joke: “what did
Lemmy is you just shout?" I asked him again. and his one of the forehead thought about it but he never
turned to answer until halfway through the next song. Standing there waiting for the boy detritus to be washed over the crowd. the stagefront yellow men facing all that shouting and screaming just look like the world's most reluctant barstaff.
After a while and mostly during the dRuM s()l(). they hand out little plastic cups of water and it looks for a minute like begrudged gin and tonics with nae ice and lemon. The DRum Solo was by Micky l). the best driimmer in rock and at the end. he threw his list wrapped towel into the crowd; except he didn't get it far enough and it stalled. opened out in flight and fell on the stage. The towel threw itself in.
Out I stand and wait. and all I can hear is Lemmy’s voice clear through the mess of speed. jumbo. gravel. At home. my little son is up and I sing an unplugged. jazzed-down ‘Ace Of Spades’ to make him sleep but with my ears wringing. l have no clue how loud I am doing it.
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