CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS OF ROLLINS IN ACTION AT THE MELBOURNE COMEDY THEATRE.
Henry Rollins is one crazy and intense ball of fury – but a hell of an engaging speaker. He wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to topics such as his country, the US’s ongoing war and occupation in Iraq, and the subsequent issues, problems and fears that arise from the troubled mess of the so-called ‘war on terror’. Rollins picks up on this ideology of who or what a terrorist is, and runs with it all throughout his public speeches, and tonight was no different.
Whilst the 47-year-old Black Flag and Rollins Band rock veteran has now gone grey, at least in hair colour, he never touches on grey areas in terms of subject matter. His focus is aggressively on the state of the world around us. He is direct as usual tonight about the US governments perception of fear and zero tolerance on anyone “who looks or acts like a terrorist”. In typical Rollins spoken word style, he defends the hot-spots and discusses his travels to war zones to find out for himself.
“I found myself in Islamabad, Pakistan and was there when Bhutto was assassinated. The next day I went outside, walked out of my hotel which was located out of town and there was a group of men on the streets, quite upset. They weren’t hurting anyone, they were just chanting and jumping up and down, and had every right to do so, but these are the people who the US fear as being terrorists – but they’re just ordinary people like you and me.”
Rollins informs us how proud he is that Australia has made the decision to change government and hopes like hell the US does the same. “Man, your Kevin Rudd speaks Mandarin and ours can’t even speak English!” Continuing on with his travel escapades, Rollins discusses witnessing the horror of war first-hand in Iraq, visiting casualty wards with young men “missing eyes, legs, missing parts of their brains, and actually some guys with heads that look like deflated balloons who will be wearing nappies for the rest of what’s left of their life.”
Discussing visits to Iran, Syria and Lebanon in recent years, Rollins explains how President George W. Bush has now become his unofficial travel agent. “It’s like whenever he tells the US people to not go to this or that place because it’s a terrorist hub, it’s like, ‘I’m right there man and on the next plane to see for myself!’”
Rollins breaks in and out of tales over the three-hour spoken word session, but manages to engage us for the entirety of the evening. This as a direct result is due to his animated persona and crazed conversation – which covers topics as diverse and strange as goat fucking to general bestiality, gay men married to horses (Rollins mentions an email he received from a redneck conservative who stated that homosexuality was unethical in God’s eyes and what was next, “Gays and horses?”), heckling matadors as a tenth grader visiting Spanish bull fights, acting in B-grade horror films and downing five shots of piping hot Lebanese coffee with a local family he had befriended, unbeknownst that this was not the proper etiquette.
Rollins doesn’t like parties and is somewhat of a social misfit (his words not mine), but is dragged along to media events constantly. Meeting Iggy Pop for him over the years has been a constant source of awe and embarrassment as Rollins discusses his awkwardness in meeting his idols.
“I played a benefit show with the great UK punk rock band The Ruts (as fill-in for their deceased lead vocalist Malcolm Owen ) and their current (now also deceased) guitarist Paul Fox who was battling lung cancer. The UK Subs supported, as did The Damned, and I was like, ‘Wow, my idols,” but I just couldn’t speak to them in a normal fashion and went on to embarrass myself again.”
Rollins is never short of topics: whether it’s flying on the spur of the moment from Beirut to San Francisco to watch Nick Cave’s Grinderman (and subsequently providing back up harmonies on stage with one Jello Biafra whilst Cave belted out the Bad Seeds classic Deanna) or sleeping in the foetal position most nights, or to his lack of female companionship (again due to his social misgivings). You could write pages about what this great man says and does, and as a matter of fact I think I have…
