Henry Rollins @ the GaelicTheatre, Sydney (8/3/2011)

Tue 22nd Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

We, as humans, are a forgetful bunch. Birthdays, appointments, anniversaries, deadlines, keys, names, dates, faces; and those are the memorable few. Our mind’s capacity is amazing, yet we often abuse this gift with the banalities of life. We fill the grey areas not with moments that best define us but with the current affairs that best interest or the words of others that we feel best judge us. What we consider on a day-to-day basis to be memorable can, in the greater scheme of life, probably best be forgotten.

It’s for this reason that the Henry Rollins show is so enthralling. The former punk rocker turned spoken word artist seems to have found a way to tap into this mental capability and launch it at audiences with a gravity that harks back to the immediacy of his Black Flag days. In a return to Sydney to celebrate his golden jubilee, Rollins chooses a venue more akin to his former life – the intimate Gaelic Theatre – to grace us with the ability he shares with few others.

On a different scale on the performance spectrum was Bruce Griffiths, a comedic writer who offers a good half-hour of stand-up. His humour is built on the sort of one-line quips that made Mitch Hedburg famous, told with a monotonous tone and a thick Australian accent. He lays jokes upon the audience that if your dad told would be cringeworthy, yet coming from someone with impeccable comedic timing works effortlessly. The final sign of approval? Someone is awkwardly laughing way too hard after the crowd has stopped. He leaves with rousing applause, even if few knew who he actually was.

Henry Rollins doesn’t aim to always produce comedy. Despite this, his show is at times very funny. He can turn both the dark – like a tour of North Korea – and the trite – like a visit to CostCo – into hilarious, belly slapping anecdotes. His up-front attitude animates the moments he remembers from times past in some of the most side-splitting manners. Though, as in any good show, sometimes he leaves the best as near-silent asides; suggesting he taught Metallica a thing or two about chord progression and lyrics is just one remark that screams louder in the mind than it does over the PA.

And while making fun of the world Rollins sees is a show in itself, it’s the way he welcomes us into that world which defines his show. From his chance encounter with Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer to almost vomiting on American right-wing shock jock Rush Limbaugh at a party with William Shatner to reading the diaries of Nelson Mandela, he speaks with and familiarity and clarity that allows us to empathise and understand his tales like they’re our own. He doesn’t skip over even the most minute details and the tangents he takes only reinforce the imagery he builds.

For a man who has spent so many years of his life placing his emotions on the line for the sake of art, Henry Rollins has built a two-hour show that connects, above all, emotionally. We may never go to North Korea, or a Johnny Cash show or be awarded any award named after Nelson Mandela, but it’s a testament to the strength of Henry’s mind and his powerful control of language that the 200 or so of us in attendance felt like we did.