Only the really brave artists go on tour in January, yet Henry Rollins has not only managed to sell out one night at The Barbican but he also sold out the extra night they added as part of his current spoken word tour. Not only that, but as far as I know sold out all the UK shows. He has also been getting lots of press as one of the few major artists on tour dealing with the recent loss of two major musical figures but, hey, more about them later.
It's now just over 28 years since I first saw Henry performing a spoken word show at the University Of London alongside Lydia Lunch and Mr Emilio Cubiero. These days Henry has more than enough material in his head to easily talk for the three hours so no support acts are needed and his material has expanded far beyond tales of masturbating on tour and looking at hookers.
He came on promptly at 7.30 and started by talking a little about the human condition and how it affects us all as the number one predator species on the planet. As ever you needed to pay attention to keep up with Henry as he got the bad stuff out of the way first. So we got some of his thoughts on American exceptionalism during which Henry quoted from one of Abraham Lincoln's speeches that he happens to know off by heart. As you do.
From there it was a small hop to telling us his story about meeting and having lunch with David Bowie while they were on the same festival bill, as well as how David helped to put him in touch with Lou Reed and how amazed he was when Lou called him up to discuss the project he wanted to work on with Lou. This was a very cool tale and showed how David influenced and was influenced by a far wider group of people than a lot of folk might imagine.
He then had a short section about his parents' manifest dysfunctionality and how they were polar opposites and how that affected him growing up. But soon enough, this morphed into a story about meeting Dionne Warwick through one of his friends that was sort of a preamble to his tales of meeting and working with firstly Tom Araya and then Lemmy as part of the West Memphis 3 tribute album he put together called Rise Above. Tom sang Revenge and Lemmy covered Thirsty & Miserable on this LP and both were a perfect fit for both singers in many ways. It always makes me feel guilty hearing stories about that album as I only paid 15p for my copy which I found in Prague and it's meant to be a fund raiser.
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Still Henry had some very good Lemmy tales but then Lemmy was a real character that was always happy to meet and hang out with almost anyone and the panel that Henry was on with Lemmy and Leonard Cohen sounds like a super weird day.
We then had an abrupt subject change and moved on to Henry talking about his film and TV work for the History channel as well as his time on Sons Of Anarchy and his most controversial film role of all which of course was his role in Jack Frost that apparently appalled and lost him several hard core fans who thought he'd wimped out!! He also touched on going to report on the Cannabis Cup in Colorado and how his straight edge mind got kinda fried on the secondary. Then there was his trip to Antarctica so he could listen to Raw Power at the south-pole while lying in a snow hole. As you do. That and hanging out with the rather smelly Penguins who were having an orgy.
This of course gave him a chance to mention he's currently Iggys's Stooge...sorry stand in on his BBC Radio 6 show before bringing the show to a close with a tale of being on tour and how he interacts and helps some of the misfits who show up. It was a touching story about a girl who traveled hours to see him and what she's been through. It was harrowing, yet uplifting and a good way to bring things to a close after pretty much 3 hours of non-stop talking during which Henry never once paused to get a drink or coughed or looked like he needed any kind of break.
As ever Henry is in top form and well worth catching live. As long as have the stamina to sit and listen to him for 3 hours then it will seem more like an hour and twenty minutes as time flies by when he's is in full flow.
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