Flaming Pablum

'WDUB 91.1 FM in Granville ... We Don't Suck!'

Herewith a a post that is bound to be somewhat strenuously niche.

It should probably come as no surprise that I was one of those annoying kids that hosted a college radio show. Given the one-two punch of my penchant for insufferable pedantry in the music-trivia department and my veritable “face made for radio,” it was a perfect fit, as far as I was concerned. I’d spend hours that, in hindsight, would have been better devoted to studying plotting out my playlists, painstakingly curating a trio of two-hour shifts a week on WDUB, 91.1 FM in Granville, Ohio for a comparably diminutive listening audience that was blithely disinterested in my selections on a good day. In a nutshell, despite my best, emphatic efforts to introduce WDUB’s listeners to the joys of bands like Kraut, The March Violets and The Screaming Blue Messiahs, they were otherwise perfectly content with the brazenly steady diet of The Allman Brothers, Little Feat and the Grateful Goddamn Dead that most of my fellow WDUB disc-jockeys dutifully doled out. Envelope-pushing was not really a priority at “The Doobie.”

Regardless, I really didn’t care about what WDUB played when I wasn’t on it. For me, the whole experience was ultimately just about self-indulgence. Given free rein to lord my musical tastes over an anaemic sliver of Central Ohio’s Licking County, I often went out of my way to make the transitions from preceding shifts as jarring as possible, segueing from an umpteenth airing of Don McLean’s laborious warhorse, “American Pie” and straight into something like “Kill Surf City” by the Jesus & Mary Chain or “Sweat Loaf” by the Butthole Surfers. Anything it took to antagonize Denison’s robust demographic of ersatz-hippies was the order of my show, and I reveled in it.

I spun records and blabbed into the microphone at WDUB -- whose tagline for the last two years I was on it, was the somewhat ignominious “We Don’t Suck!” — for three of my four years, but did not, in the end, pursue a career in broadcasting afterwards. At no point during my time at WDUB did the consideration of “going pro” cross my mind. I harbored no desire to go into commercial radio which, as far as I could tell, bore absolutely zero resemblance to the free-form, anything-goes realm of college radio. Apart from some brief stints backing up my high school pal Rob B. on his show at Fordham University’s WFUV, I haven’t set foot in a radio studio since.

Fast forward three decades….

In rummaging around in my mom’s basement over Thanksgiving, I came across a clutch of cassettes filled with recordings of my shows on WDUB. Dating back to 1988, these tapes hadn’t seen the insides of a player since shortly after they were recorded by this kid who lived down the hall from me during my junior year. I decided to exhume them from the dank wilderness of Mom’s basement, despite no longer having a device on which to play them.

Earlier this week, I bought myself an audio converter for the purposes of making digital files out of them to host here on my stupid blog. After setting everything up, I cracked open the first tape and started the process, re-living the show as I converted it.

Suffice to say, it wasn’t a revelation so much as an exercise in acute embarrassment. A morning show captured in the early spring, this tape finds what would have been the 19-year-old me speedily slurring through my announcements in between tracks by somewhat predictable bands like The Cure, The Mission, The Lords of the New Church, The Plimsouls, The Cult, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Feelies and several others.

I cannot vouch for the fidelity and, given the age of this tape, proceedings do sort of wobble and drag at certain points, finding certain songs practically changing key. This is only one show — I evidently have several others to plough through. As a period-specific document of a certain time and place, it’s amusing.

If you care, please avail yourselves…. ADDENDUM: Might not work with Safari, but try Firefox.

WDUB Morning Show - First Part

WDUB Morning Show - Second Part

 

Fuck You, Dry January

I mean, let’s face it, January sucks, no matter how you slice it. Between it being long, dark and cold and the comedown from the ostensibly festive holiday season, one can’t help but enter into it with some semblance of dread and despair. This, of course, comes coupled for many with a sense of guilt and obligation, whether it’s because of the resolve to honor one’s New Year’s resolutions or simply to detoxify via the self-imposed exile from boozeville that is so-called “Dry January.”

In past years, I’ve endeavored to accomplish the DryJan challenge, as routinely mentioned on my year-end surveys and at great length here last year. Last time around, as I said, I was knocked off the horse early by the arrival of the colorfully named winter weather event, the Bomb Cyclone. That’s just an excuse, of course. Had it not been the Bomb Cyclone, I’m sure I would have concocted some other reason. In short order, it was beery business as usual.

This year, however, it felt less like a whim or nagging twinge of guilt and more like a necessity. December had proven to be a robust month of imbibing, what with a preponderance of holiday events to attend. After weeks of office Christmas parties, a wedding and a few other booze-laden social engagements, we repaired to my brother-in-law’s place out in Pennsylvania for Boxing Day. I was pretty much handed an open beer when I stepped out the car at 2:00 pm, and that kept going until well into the evening. By New Year’s Eve, I was beyond determined to undertake a Dry January. Hell, I was positively looking forward to it.

I wasn’t getting sloppy-shitty, blacking out, slurring my words, starting fights with strangers or anything, but the burly intake of beer was becoming routine, and my tolerance was ascending sharply. Between the probable weight-gain, the conceivable strain on my liver (although my friend Keith keeps reminding me: THAT’S WHAT YOUR LIVER IS FOR, DAMMIT!) and, frankly, the expenditure -– I felt it was high time to flex my long-dormant will power, dry my system out and save some money… the latter reason reinforced by the arrival of some beefy post-Christmas Amex bills.

For no readily apparent reason, however I decided to augment the swearing-off of beer with two other stipulations. I would go without my iPod (yep, I still use an iPod … and you can go fuck yourself if you find that funny), as I’d been noticing a shrill uptick in the tinnitus that has been screaming in my right ear since 1999. Being that it’s been suggested that alcohol-consumption heightens the ring (along with salt, sugar and pretty much anything else that makes life worth living … like, say, oxygen and sex), I figured I should give my ears a break as well as my liver. A steadily stentorian diet of IDLES, Daughters and, strangely, The Upper Crust for much of December certainly weren’t doing them favors.

The third prong of my resolution was fairly simple: Take the stairs. Not at the office, mind you, but at home. It’s not a big deal, but I figured walking up and down the five flights would be a good habit to get into. To be honest, my building is fairly squat, and you’re on the second floor before it even hits you and while you’ve digested that information, you’re practically on the fourth floor. But hey, … couldn’t hurt, right? Regular readers might remember my running campaign from a few years back. Recurring knee problems forced me to abandon that, but I figure walking up and down stairs is something I should be able to regularly tackle.

Anyway, that was going to be my January – thirty-one days marked by sobriety, silence and strength.

Honestly, the toughest of the three directives to honor has been the stairs. It’s not that I’m lazy or that I find ascending those five flights too challenging, but rather that I just forget. I walk into my lobby, and muscle memory almost takes over. I check my mail and boom, next thing I know I’ve pushed the button and gotten on the elevator. There have been times when I have actually gone back downstairs and repaired to the stairwell to complete my mission, but I’m just finding it hard to remember to do it.

Swearing off my iPod has been less complicated, although I threw that particular towel in today. In the ten days without wearing earbuds, I’ve noticed the ring minimally rise and fall in its ceaseless pitch, but not necessarily as the direct result of anything I’ve been doing – as far as I can tell, at least. This morning, I was just bored, so I slipped them back in and scored the latter half of my commute with some vintage New Order at a reasonable volume. No one is hurt by this.

In terms of the beer? Last night, after a bone-chilling walk home from the bottom of TrBeCa to the heart of the Village, I reconsidered my decisions. Yeah, I was able to turn it off for ten days, and can completely keep going, but why am I punishing myself? It’s not like someone’s going to hand me a fucking medal at the end of the month. I’m sick of drinking seltzer and tea in the evenings. I sprang for a six of Sapporo and indulged.

And with that, yes, I’ve technically failed Dry January again. I may go back to it this evening, but it almost doesn’t “count” now, not that anyone’s keeping score.

Weigh in, readers …. How are you fairing with your resolutions?

Subway Shenanigans

Personally speaking, as a native New Yorker, I hate riding the fucking subway and do it as infrequently as possible. Were it up to me, I’d walk everywhere, and usually endeavor to do so, but life, of course, doesn’t always work the way you want it to. As such, I brave the subways like everybody else, when I have to.

There’s a code of conduct one should observe when traveling by rail underground, although obviously not everyone adheres to it. Personally speaking, unless a subway car is close to empty, I usually prefer to stand. My kids never quite understand this, and I tell them that it’s because I’d prefer to be able to “spring into action” should I have to. That’s obviously something of a dramatic embellishment, but there is some truth to it.

While everyone has their own private stipulations, there are some rules that should be universal: Let passengers off before you get on, don’t stand blocking the doors, don’t eat aromatic food, wear deodorant, etc. One would like to think these and a few choice others go without saying. If only.

It comes and goes, but it strikes me that more recently, the New York City subway system has been besieged by a new plague of inconsiderate conduct. From manspreading and panhandling to assault and battery and all points in between, the indignities and affronts on unsolicited offer during your average subway ride are once again myriad. To help us tally these unfortunate instances comes Gothamist, who tidily compile archives of bad subway behavior under the tag “Subway Etiquette,” a category amply fed by the ability to publicly shame oblivious offenders via personal technology and social media. Find it all here.

Incidentally, you don’t have to go underground to have your day ruined on New York City mass transit. Late last week, my son and I boarded a curiously empty (always a red flag) bus on Third Avenue, only to discover that someone had taken a robust dump in the stepwell of the rear exit.

Only in New York.

Starless & Static

Not sure why this should be surprising in any way, but in the 368 days since it served its final meal, rang in the New Year and closed its doors for good, the space that was the NoHo Star (above, this evening) on the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette Streets remains strangely, perfectly untouched.

The restaurant’s old chairs are still stacked on the tables, the fixtures and accoutrements that defined the space (the mosaics, the artwork and the clock above the bar I’ve always coveted) are all still there. In fact, I don’t think the lights in the kitchen were ever turned off — they’ve literally been on for a year and three days.

Not sure what makes me sadder — this strange state of limbo-like dormancy, or the thought of something else eventually taking the space.

2018: The Year in Photographs

If you spend any meaningful amount of time on this blog, or are foolish enough to follow me on Instagram, you already know that I take what some might consider an irresponsibly laborious amount of pictures. I can't help myself. Were I unable to share those photographs on social media or here on this blog, I don't think I would behave any differently. And in an era when one can capture striking images without a huge, hulking camera but with simply one's iPhone, I find myself routinely pausing throughout my travels to do just that. 

As such, here are some of my own favorite images I was lucky enough to capture this year. You may have seen some of these before, but I tried to eschew repeating shots from the Beirut trip, the  England trip and the summer, as I feel I've covered those already. Click on each to enlarge, should you feel so inclined. 

Anyway, please enjoy, and why not share your own? 

Goodbye to Stormy 2018

Technically, there are still a few days left of 2018, but for all intents and purposes, it’s over. As such, time to dust off this old thing. Let’s have at it.

What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?
Travel to the Middle East. Partake of Black Pudding. Submit a stool sample. Not all on one day, mind you.

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My plans for the inevitable “Dry January” were stymied by the arrival of the bomb cyclone. We’ll see what happens this year.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Friends of mine had children. No one in the immediate family.

Did anyone close to you die?
In the beginning of the year, my childhood friend Danny passed away. I wrote a few posts about it. Still hard to believe.

What countries did you visit?
I went to Lebanon in August (with a stopover in Paris) and England in November.

What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?
A responsible adult in the White House.

What date from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory?
I’m going to say September 12, which was significant for me in that it was both my organization’s company-wide Town Hall meeting (for which I orchestrated video coverage and content) in Nashville, Tennessee and the date of Killing Joke’s New York stop on their 40th Anniversary tour. I’d taken pains to arrange it so I could actually do both, but those plans collapsed, as discussed in histrionic detail here.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I’m proud of my continuing ascent at my place of work. The work I do is recognized and appreciated. That’s a nice feeling. Here's hoping I can sustain in 2019.

What was your biggest failure?
My little family has sorely outgrown our living space, but we have yet to find a working solution.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Well, at one point, I had a scare with a tick. Then I developed a wicked case of Montezuma’s Revenge (read: traveler’s diarrhea) following the trip to Beirut. Then there was a sort of mystery condition that prompted a few invasive and uncomfortable tests (see stool sample answer above), that revealed nothing and went away as mysteriously as it had arrived. I’m sure you’re sorry you asked, now.

What was the best thing you bought?
Airline tickets for London to see the close of Killing Joke’s 40th Anniversary tour.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Christine Blasey Ford

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Brett Kavanaugh, Matthew Whitaker, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, Mike Pence, Lyndsey Graham.

What did you get really, really excited about?
Traveling to Beirut. Traveling to London to see Killing Joke.

Where did most of your money go?
Tuition for my kids’ schools.

What song will always remind you of 2018?
“Never Fight a Man with a Perm” by IDLES

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
I’d say I’m about the same. I’m worried about a few things, but overall am content with how things are going on a personal level. On a grander scale, 2018 was a year of constant incredulousness, shock, disgust and shame over the Trump Administration.

Thinner or fatter?
Certainly fatter.

Richer or poorer?
Feeling the latter in the wake of the holiday season. We’ll see when those Amex bills arrive.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Relaxing with my wife and kids.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time on social media. Arguing about politics with certain folks.

How did you spend Christmas?
Spread over Quogue, Manhattan, Brooklyn and West Chester, PA.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
No earthly idea.

Did you fall in love in 2018?
Was already in love.

How many one night stands in this last year?
Zero. Happily hitched.

What was your favorite TV program?
I quite liked “The Bodyguard.”

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I continue to hate Trump and his cronies and his supporters. 

What was the best book you read?
Without question, the “Beastie Boys Book.”

What was your greatest musical discovery?
From eons passed, I discovered that great collaboration of Robert Fripp and David Sylvian, and a band I’d entirely slept on called The Oblivians, who are amazing. I also became somewhat enthralled by two newer bands, specifically IDLES and Daughters, as I mentioned here.

What did you want and get?
I was finally able to see Killing Joke on their 40th Anniversary tour –- TWICE, no less (Oxford and London)

What did you want and not get?
Regime change.

What were your favorite films of this year?
I quite liked “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, which was a refreshingly smart, very New Yorky film. I suppose I liked “Avengers: Infinity Wars,” but all those Marvel movies are starting to blur together for me.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned an unseemly 51, and had a small celebration with my family.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Trump’s impeachment, indictment and incarceration.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?
Embarrassing Dad With a Band T-shirt Problem

What kept you sane?
My lovely wife and children.

What celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I normally don’t have an answer for this, but I’m going to say Hayley Atwell. She’s close to perfect.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Fuckin’ take your pick.

Who did you miss?
Pete Shelley, Stan Lee, Mark E. Smith

Who was the best new person you met?
Three of my wife’s cousins in Beirut, who are all totally excellent.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018
Never lose your sense of humor, regardless of how bleak and dire things get.

Song lyric that sums up 2018
Not a current song, but from World Party’s “Ship of Fools,” this feels kinda accurate…

We're setting sail to the place on the map
from which no one has ever returned
Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool
by the light of the crosses that burned.

Ramones Removal

I cannot be sure when it was first put up, but I first spotted it in December of 2015, right about the time I’d started my new gig downtown. Along a perpetually weathered strip of SoHo on Thompson Street between Broome and Grand — one that’s always been a magnet for street art — an artist who calls himself Space Invader affixed a brilliant, pixelated portrait of the Ramones (circa their first album cover) as an intricate, tiled mosaic to an age-old, bricked-up window box on the easterly side of the street (essentially the rear of the parking garage on West Broadway). While SoHo isn’t the first neighborhood I’d have chosen to commemorate da brudders, being a lifelong Ramones fan, I loved this bit of street art from the second I laid eyes on it. Anything that gives props to this greatest of New York City bands, to my mind, is a justified endeavor.

Then, as documented on this post, the mosaic started to suffer a bit of physical trauma and endure a torrent of indignities as the building’s caretaker — one assumes — routinely tried to paint over it. By this time last year, the portrait had been crudely painted over with a sickly shade of yellowish beige.

Then, last August, the Ramones triumphantly re-emerged — courtesy of Space Invader? — a little worse for wear, but freshly scrubbed of their yucky beige coating. I was well pleased.

Tonight, however, I spotted something dispiriting. Again, presumably the work of the building’s landlord, the Ramones mosaic appeared to be in the throes of forcible removal, half of its tiles violently chipped away.

Space Invader, the ante has been upped. It's clearly your move. 

Pour one out for Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee & Tommy…

 

Idles Redux

Last post about the IDLES for now …. maybe.

As if I couldn’t love them any more than I already do, I stumbled upon this video from their first album, Brutalism. I don’t own it yet, but will be rectifying that error shortly. In any event, the entirety of this video for “Stendhal Syndrome” is footage of burly, beardy bassist Andrew “Dev” Devonshire dancing inappropriately with great aplomb in some of the world’s more revered museums ….notably the Metropolitan Museum here in New York and the Saathci Gallery in London. I actually have a pic of my kids standing in front of one of the same paintings Dev dances in front of at about 0:22 (see below).

As endearingly silly as the video is, the backstory is quite compelling:

From Genius .com: In a statement to The Know, lead singer Joe Talbot said this about the song: I once sat on a bench in a gallery in Valencia. I stared in awe of a painting for a good while, I was moved to tears by the scene of a man holding a crucifix at the top of a mound of other figures grappling for the glory of God. I’m not religious but it captivated me to the point of nausea. I looked into this and the phenomenon which has happened before and since, it’s called Stendhal Syndrome.

Those moments in my life were not driven by any pretension but from something intrinsically fucking magical. Now, of course, there is an obvious class divide sustained in the art world and that will always be there so long as art is perceived as this language only to be spoken and understood by the rich but the likelihood of our songs being heard and in turn being listened to by the upper classes is very unlikely, so I thought I’d highlight the other side that helps keep up the bullshit; that “I could do that” attitude because it’s fucking ignorant and it’s lazy and why the fuck does one person’s voice have to be shut down because you could fucking do it! Shut up, you’re boring. You didn’t do it BUT YOU CAN and maybe if you did you’d be less defensive about other people expressing themselves and you not. All is love.

Enjoy:

Rest in Peace, Bleecker Bob Plotnik

I wrote about the significance of Bleecker Bob’s here seemingly more times than can be humanly quantified, the last meaningful post, I believe, being the one documenting my visit to the frankly mediocre Japanese restaurant that now operates in its former space. Above is how it looked in about 2010 or so (that’s m’self and Oliver).

The final chapter, alas, came this week with the news that “Bleecker Bob” Plotnik himself passed away. Plotnik suffered a stroke in 2001, and had been in declining health ever since.

Reactions to this news were candid and mixed. By most accounts, Bob was a frequently disagreeable and polarizing figure, prone to treating people fairly brusquely. Speaking as one of his frequent customers, I certainly weathered my share of his scorn on occasion.

That said, I do fondly remember one afternoon when my friend Rob B. and I were in there and Bob was involved in a surreal exchange with a trio of Scandiweigian metalheads. They’d evidently asked Bob to look at some rareified hair-metal artefact behind the counter, but their clipped, broken English was making the exchange somewhat painful for all parties concerned. Never known for his wellspring of patience, Bob was swiftly losing his easily-abandoned cool with these dudes, and even glanced at us for moral support at one point. My takeaway from that was that we may have been irritating shitheads to him, but we were HIS irritating shitheads. That’s as close to a warm’n’fuzzy moment about the man as I can recount.

Prior to working together at the New York Review of Records, estimable Brit rock-crit legend Kris Needs manned the cash-register at Bleecker Bob’s (indeed it was hirsute Kris who sold me my first vinyl copy of Acid Bath by Alien Sex Fiend). On Kris’ Facebook feed this morning, he posted this nice tribute to Bob…

Sad news; I worked at Bleecker Bob's for nearly three years (86-89). He could be a narcissistic oaf who treated his customers like shit and staff even worse, shouting, spitting when he spoke, getting me to run and get his McDonald's in icy blizzards, take his great dane Max out in all weathers with pooh sack ready, insulting to my friends and often treating me like a slave. But he also encouraged a weird fierce loyalty, looked after me when I was in hospital (catching pneumonia from those food runs!) and did much to bring great records to NYC (and export old LPs to the UK which I boxed in the basement). I didn't like it when old black guys came in to the store with their precious jazz collections, he gave them a dollar apiece like he was doing them a favour then marked them up to $40 a pop after they'd left and many other cruel traits but, underneath the scary broadsides lurked a heart of gold and he certainly didn't deserve to spend his last years crippled from a stroke. I fell victim to the city and had to leave his minimum wage employment, under something of a cloud I'm not proud of, but the man was an iron girder of the old NYC that has now vanished into the history books. RIP Bob.

Bleecker Bob Plotnik may have been a cantankerous, misanthropic curmudgeon, but my early days of music fandom would have been markedly dimmer without his shop.

Rest in peace, sir. 

Laughing in London: The Killing Joke Wrap-Up

I cannot imagine how/why anyone would care, at this stage, but I was taken to task offline for not finishing the saga, so here is a rudimentary wrap-up.

Having decided shortly upon my glum return to New York after my Nashville work-event that inadvertantly caused me to miss that Killing Joke show that I was going to make up for my loss by flying to London for the finale of the band's 40th Anniversary “Laugh At Your Peril” tour, I booked my tickets and made my arrangements. Little did I know that on the day I was to fly to England, a sizable snowstorm was to engulf New York and ensnare traffic in and out of the city to a virtual standstill …. in friggin' November, no less. 

I left my office around 2:30 pm that afternoon, and the snow was already coming down in buckets. The Uber I’d called the night before to pick me up at 4:00 pm arrived at my front door perfectly on time, but there began the trouble. In th past, the trip from my building in Greenwich Village to Newark International Airport has taken more or less 35 to 40 minutes on a normal day. On this day, the journey took an agonizing THREE HOURS. I shit you not. It took an hour to crawl to the Holland Tunnel, another hour to inch our way through that tunnel, and then a third hour to limply stagger through the un-ploughed roads to the airport. I’d planned an earlier departure than normal, but it was still fairly nerve-wracking. I gave my poor Georgian driver (as in Eastern Europe, not “The Devil Went Down To…”) a hefty tip before he turned to make the arduous slog back to Manhattan.

During the course of that drive, I kept checking my Virgin Atlantic flight’s depature time, but it was still boldly asserting 9:35, however unrealistic that was seeming. I checked in aound 7pm and helped myself to a beer.

As predicted, though, the schedule began to change. My plane’s takeoff time started to gradually get pushed back further and further, ostensibly to allow the crew scheduled to work the flight to make it to the airport through the tempest as I had just done. Eventually, what had originally been scheduled as a 9:35 pm flight turned into a 1:30 am flight.

That part didn’t really bother me so long as the flight wasn’t cancelled at the last minute (as many other flights around me had been). The wait was long and painful to the extent that even drinking beer lost its allure. I was already angry. I didn’t need to be drunk and angry. But, eventually, they let me on board and …. off we went.

The rest of the story is pretty straightforward. I was met, upon my late arrival, by two estimable members of The Gathering, a sort-of online cabal (originally a humble mailing list) of fervent KJ fans. For the first night, I traveled to the little village of Long Hanborough where my friend Rob M. resides. From there, we took the train into neighboring Oxford. After a few rapturous pints at a pub supposedly once regularly frequented by sparring storytellers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, we met up with more of our scowly flock and adjourned to the Oxford Academy -– sort of a Bowery Ballroom-sized venue -– for a blistering gig that found the disarmingly fit foursome in feral form. We went backstage for a small bit, but backstage visits are almost always awkward. We said some quick “hello”’s and whatnot, but were soon our of their face. I never want to be that hanger-on fanboy.

We went back to Long Hanborough and stayed up until just past 2:00 watching vintage reggae videos and drinking irresponsible quantities of cider.

For Saturday, we decamped to London for the main event, the tour-closer at the historic Roundhouse, a storied venue in Camden that was formerly a massive railway facility.

Prior to the gig, we had ourselves some dinner at a sort of nouvelle fish’n’chips joint before crossing the road for a few pints at the allegedly historic Dublin Castle, a somewhat grotty bar/music venue favored by fans (and band members) of local titans like The Vibrators and Madness.

We hit a few more pubs en route (notably the eardrum-shattering World’s End and Camden Underworld) before entering the Roundhouse, which is a formidable space to the say the least.

The show itself was the stuff of legend. A blinding set from start to finish, touching on most of their sprawling catalog, albeit nary a track from certain albums --- Fire Dances, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, Outside The Gate and Hosannas from the Basements of Hell -- you assuredly cannot please everyone.

All in all, it was glorious.