You gotta wonder what Lemmy Kilmister dreams of. Masses of screaming mouths, thrusting arms, hurtling bodies, flashing strobes and over it all him and his band with their Marshall stacks unleashing wave upon wave of crashing, metal-shearing volume -- this is his exact, unexaggerated life, night after glorious night.
Does he dream of ponies? Of trouncing in the poppy fields of Kent with John, Paul, George and Ringo? Of having tea with Wordsworth and watching the wand'ring lonely clouds?
Perhaps his dreams are darker. Perhaps he imagines riding atop a roan stallion across the Mongolian steppes, driving his enemies into the bloody ground, their corpses riddled with arrows. He pits their leaders' heads on pikes and stakes them across the barren plain.
All we know is this: "We are Motorhead. And we play rock and roll."
The last time Motorhead was in town it was on the Volcom tour, with openers Valient Thorr and the Misfits. And what a fearsome black mass it was.
Last night at the Midland, however, the Witch King of Metal had for his cavalry a mixed troop of spiders and gentleman orks.
The former, Nashville Pussy, weaved a short, tight web of motorcycle-revving trash rock at 7:45. By 8:14, after a quick din of tits and riffs, the group was off. The crowd had barely finished its first beer.
Not long before 9, the suave and impishly twisted Reverend Horton Heat, man and three-piece band, came out and began choogling up a fortress of chaotic rockabilly and punk-drunk Western Swing. The Rev played for an hour, and until the last 15 or so, it was hard to tell whether the band or the crowd was phoning it in. Not like the band didn't play crisply or precisely or with spark. But the set came off more perfunctory than ass-kicking, despite this really cool photo.
It hurt that Heat did not get kooky -- or expressive at all, really -- until the end, when the lights shone high and he smiled into them creepily wearing a black Jughead cap. Just before that, he'd done his trademark move: standing on his bassman's overturned upright, the both of them still slapping and rocking furiously. Just after, a pink brassiere was thrown onto the stage, only to be picked up by a roadie who held it aloft for a second then vanished. Other than those moments, RHH seemed to be relying on the crowd to do the work for them, which the crowd only occasionally obliged. All in all, it was lackluster, as radio-sponsored one-offs tend to be.
After the Rev's set ended, there was a line in the lobby for the smoking area outside. The place, by the way, was packed -- about as close to capacity as you'd wanna see in a huge venue like the Midland. With tickets priced at $9.89 (thanks be to the Rock), there was no worry of attendance.
During this time, my companion Petrus (whose name means "rock") and I had no trouble moving down close, installing ourselves within 10, 15 feet of the stage-right PA stack and steps away from the barrier. This arrangement would not last long.
Petrus compared Lemmy's bass sound to the concussive blasts that set into motion the apocalypse that prefaces Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Of Lemmy's patented invocation (We are Motorhead. We play rock and roll in case you forgot), Petrus said, "It's the zen koan of metal."
No sooner had he spake these words than Motorhead was on stage, tearing into "Iron Fist" with the fury of a napalm attack on a village made of stick houses. We had to retreat.
And the retreat continued, until I was installed near the back of the venue and Petrus was lost to both man and god for the remainder of the set. I would be tempted to say that the sound system in the Midland was not equipped to handle every note and nuance of Motorhead's sonic array, but what is? The PA aboard the Death Star? Even that would crumple like wax paper.
Lemmy's trebly Rickenbacker sounded like a sun-sized megaphone pressed against Satan's pulse. The drummer was Matt Sorum, formerly of Guns 'N Roses, who was playing his last gig with the band and was not going down without making some noise. Tender mediator for the 'Head was guitarist Phil Campbell, who did his best to produce actual, tonic notes amid the tempest.
Yet, for whatever reason, the crowd remained largely unmoved, at least at first. Sure, there were pumping arms here and there, and a handful of lads even attempted to bounce along the top the crowd down front, but the audience, though expansive, suffered from lethargy the entire set. Only during the better-known songs did they seem at all riled.
And that was OK with Motorhead. Not feelin' wild? They'll still put on a show.
And Lemmy and friends did not hesitate or relent until the last cadenza of "Overkill" was over and it was time to take a bow and stalk back to the forest.
Perched safely in the back, I tried my best to keep track of the set. Usually, I try and record lyrics in order to Google them later, but Kilmister's not exactly Morning Edition material, so most of the lyrics I got were completely misheard. Luckily, I brought a set list from a recent show. Here is that list, paired with what I heard come out of Lemmy's mouth -- before, during or after the corresponding song. Hope it helps.
Set List
Iron Fist
Stay Clean
Be My Baby: "Behind the mall ... encore encore!"
Rock Out With Your Cock Out: "You will get your face whipped."
Metropolis: "I don't care, I ain't there."
Over the Top: "Phil, get on me."
One Night Stand
I Got Mine: "I like the animal teeth."
The Thousand Names of God (?)
Another Perfect Day
In the Name of Tragedy: "Fucking idiots, William Shakespeare!" (spoken before song)
Just 'Cause You Got the Power Don't Mean You Got the Right: "You make the TV scream."
Goin to Brazil: "Any Brazilians among ya in the crowd?" (spoken before)
Killed By Death: "I got a button to push."
Bomber: "Stretch your legs."
Encore
Whorehouse Blues: (Oddly, I understood almost every word of this acoustic number.)
Ace of Spades: (Who can't recognize this song?)
Overkill: "If you're making bread."
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Love this show it's so funny, it is nice to see something so fresh and original.
CH - agreed on the opening bands. Not so much on the crowd surfing policy. It's too entertaining to watch, and it's the price to pay for being down front.
It was a good show, but really wish that they'd switched the order of the opening bands. NP set was way too short and RHH way too long. It was nice to finally see Motorhead live, and my husband caught one of Lemmy's guitar pics.
Sure wish the Midland another other venues would enact a zero tolerance policy for crowd surfers. Surprised I don't have a bruise from where one kicked me in the face as they went over the barricade.
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