I can’t explain why I didn’t run out frantically and join Bowie’s fan club and get the best possible seats I could for the Paramount – yeah, the show was six months in advance. Yeah, it would have meant making my first ticket purchase of 2004 still with much of 2003 ahead of me. But this was Bowie. Not that he was ever the sine qua non, but he was still - David fucking Bowie. The shows were events. You bought clothes. (I mean, what woman under 40 didn’t buy a pair of red high heeled shoes when “Let’s Dance” came out? I had two, one patent leather). Even in 1984 there was something still on the edge of dangerous about it, maybe a little deviant, or rather, the potential for deviance was there. I’ll never forget the sight of some big irish fratboy type walking down the aisle on the floor at MSG, screaming the chorus of “Cracked Actor” (go ahead, Google it, I’ll wait.) at the top of his lungs. Like I said, the potential for deviance. Which, in 1984, was almost enough, and in 2004, the potential alone is probably illegal in certain states.
I picked up my ticket in a miracle drop of one ticket on Friday. I get there and find that my MF4 double letter seats are now MF3, row H, which I reckoned was front and center without having to read the little note explaining about the glitch in the ticket system that sold my seat twice. Clearly, I was meant to see this, and clearly, I needed to see it.
But see, I think Bowie, and that still automatically translates into dancing my ass off during “Rebel Rebel” – otherwise, what’s the point? It isn’t sitting in my seat for the quiet songs and maybe daring to stand up during the loud ones. And this was so not a sit down show or a sit down tour. He is snarky, witty, obnoxious, and larger than life, as always. Not to mention still utterly fucking beautiful. Although, I was happy to see him from that close and see that he does look his age, it’s not this unnatural waxy thing that sometimes he looks like on TV (that A&E By Request, he almost looked like he belonged in the Hall of Presidents at Disneyworld). But, I mean, handsome and comfortable beyond belief in his skin.
The lights go down, there’s a little animation to walk them on, and then there’s that opening riff to the aforementioned “Rebel Rebel” – who doesn’t want to dance to “Rebel Rebel”? I’m sorry, but you must not have any kind of rock and roll heart if that doesn’t at least make you want to shake it a little bit – but then they strip it down, modernize it a bit, I can’t explain it more than that, but it’s more melodic and less in your face, more finesse, less wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (okay, wrong song), before coming back to the original vibe and bringing it home.
It was an odd audience, and not because it was an old audience – it wasn’t old, which is what was weird about it. It was right after “All The Young Dudes” got the worst, most disappointing, anemic reaction – weird, because I remember that just bringing the house down at the same venue in 97 – and the thought flashes through my mind that this isn’t an old crowd because these aren’t the old school fans, these are the Let’s Dance fans.
This thought was confirmed, exactly, with “China Girl” as the next song and the largest cheer of the night. Larger than “All The Young Dudes”? What is wrong with you people? I’d even bet that, if I’d taken a casual survey of the people around me, they wouldn’t even know that “China Girl” is an Iggy song. So, again, odd.
He turns around and says, “Band, what do you want to do next—“ and then gives a major spoiler that the next three songs in a row will be from Low – alludes to the fact that he’s just spoiled the surprise – admonishes us, “It’s my band!” when a few dozen of us bother to cheer the song choices. But, um, yeah. “A New Career In A New Town,” “Breaking Glass” and “Be My Wife” – the thing about the Berlin era albums, to me anyway, isn’t lyrics (with the exception of “Heroes”), it’s the whole sonic package. Which, admittedly, is hard to do live (I missed night four of the Serious Moonlight Tour at MSG and apparently they played “Warzawa,” which, while on paper is a “holy shit!” moment, in person I gotta tell you, I ain’t so sure about). This band, though, is stellar. Gail Ann Dorsey is still around to sing that second part on “Under Pressure,” and this tour we have Earl Slick and not Reeves Gabrels. (In 97, I was waiting in line with friends and some Bowie fanatic had a shirt that said, “Reeves is God”. My friend responded with, “I don’t think he’s even John The Baptist”.) For Bowie to have toyed with a more industrial sound was obvious. For him to come back to straight ahead rock with a band that as flexible as silly putty is a much smarter choice. Otherwise, he could have ended up like Lou Reed, who, god love him, has some weird-ass band with some freaky male soprano and has his tai chi teacher come out and perform while he sings (I am so not making this up).
Highlights: I think “Man Who Sold The World” has lost the Kurt Cobain association (at least I’m less tired of it since I’m not hearing it on the radio every 10 minutes), "Hallo Spaceboy" was was delightfully evil, "Life On Mars" into Panic In Detroit fucking killed (especially having Earl Slick playing the lead on the latter), and finally, “White Light White Heat” into “I’m Afraid of Americans” and then “Heroes,” also restructured along the same lines “Rebel Rebel” was... utterly mindblowing. Missing in action for me would have been "Look Back In Anger" and "Boys Keep Swinging" (former maybe not, but latter would fit well with his mood this tour. Oh well.)
Encore: too short. “Five Years” was more of a triumphant screamer than a cry for help, “Suffragette City” got the only real crowd participation of the night (guess), finally ending with “....Ziggy played guitar....!”
Other thoughts: While my general rule is, “Lead singers should not play guitar” (think Daltrey, Jagger, et. al.), Bowie at least doesn’t overdo it and when he straps one on now, he really fucking means it (see: “White Light White Heat” – and I have to say this is the first time he’s really sold me on his version. Up until now, I could let it slide but didn’t really dig it.)
He still delivers. He still brings it. I think he even surprises himself – like one moment, in the middle of “I’m Afraid of Americans,” out of nowhere he strikes the Jesus Christ Pose and his eyes are burning and filled with laser intensity and you know the flames are just rumbling somewhere deep inside there. Still.
Which is why we still go. For the potential.
Last month, I spent an afternoon putting bookshelves together, and listening to this relatively new live Ramones album from 1978. And I’m standing there, holding a screwdriver, trying to figure out how to not fuck things up so I don’t have to take the damn thing apart and put it back together the right way, when it suddenly hits me. And I mean, hit me for the first time, even though it's hardly a new thought:
I'll never see the Ramones again. Ever.
When Elliot Smith died, I was up in the middle of the night, trading links to news reports and commiserating with a 20something acquaintance from a newsgroup I frequent. In one of his emails, he mentioned the fact that Elliot was the first death where he felt it was something that truly belonged to him. He felt that he couldn't "claim" Joe Strummer's death as it was before his time, no matter how much the Clash may have affected him. I think that's how I feel about the loss of Joey and Dee Dee, more than any other rock and roll death these past few years.
As much as I worshipped the Who and was so obsessed for so many years that that's how anyone from high school remembers me, I felt as though I was a pretender trying to claim Entwistle’s death. As much as I hate to admit it, it was really beyond my generation. I mean, I didn’t become a fan until after Keith Moon was dead. But the Ramones - they were mine. I was a fan in real time. They were from New York. And they were one of the first bands I ever snuck out of the house against permission to go see. When I was in high school, wearing a Ramones shirt was an act of the highest rebellion, and the only thing that would save you from getting beaten up was the fact that you were a girl, and considered so weird, due to your musical interests, that you were not even worth the energy. Can you imagine this today? (this is why I find it extremely funny when mall punks try to menace me on the bus. I just want to say, “Your Hot Topic clothes and Supercuts punk haircut do not frighten me in the least, you know that, right?”)
So I’m dancing around the apartment, assembling this Ikea furniture, singing along at the top of my lungs (I’m still not sure if this makes me really fucking cool, or really fucking pathetic), and then this realization falls upon me like a ton of bricks. Specifically, it hit me during "Let's Dance" - where I know the song so well I can mark the guitar chords at the exact precise split seconds. That song always stands out for me as the perfect example of why the Ramones were a fucking great band: their razor sharp timing between chorus and verse, Joey’s impeccable phrasing, Johnny’s waves and waves of power chords. You know that feeling where you are just part of the song, there's no separation between your body and the notes being played? It felt like I was there, like it was live, that I was in the audience singing along for dear life and pogoing along fiercely. I felt that blissful feeling again for a precious few seconds and then I realized that this was the closest I'd ever come to that again, and it made me unbearably sad.
There was nothing like being at a Ramones show. Even in 1995 it still felt almost as defiant as it did in 1980. The Ramones were a headliner at Bumbershoot ’95; Mudhoney was the opening act. However, whoever put that day’s schedule together was clearly smoking crack, because that bill was the exact same time as Patti Smith, and while this was ostensibly a poetry reading, this was the summer when Patti had just returned to playing live after 25 years, and her readings were turning into mini-acoustic shows. So what did I do? I saw Mudhoney, and then pried myself out of the pit and hauled ass over the Opera House to watch Patti and Jim Carroll (See what I mean? On what planet did that make any sense? Anyone who wanted to see Patti and JC damn sure also wanted to be at the Ramones, and not necessarily vice versa). It hurt, but my rationale was that I was going to be seeing them open for Pearl Jam twice the following month. (And, ya know, god bless Pearl Jam for that. The New Orleans Pearl Jam show was actually supposed to have been the Ramones’ last U.S. show ever.)
After the night had ended, my friends and I assembled at Bumbershoot headquarters, the late, lamented Denny’s on Mercer Street. Sitting in one of those ridiculously large circular booths, my younger friends who had been at the Ramones show began relating it back to me:
"Well, they walked out to this Western song..."
Me: "Right. ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’"
"How did you know?"
"Because they always do."
"And someone came out wearing a mask during one song, maybe it was Eddie!"
"Might well have been, but someone always comes out wearing a mask to carry the Gabba Gabba Hey sign."
"Joey wore his leather jacket the whole time!"
"Yep, he does that."
After a while they realized that they weren't going to surprise me with any of their observations. They were so crestfallen. To them they thought they were seeing it for the first time - but they were! That's what I tried to tell them. What did it matter that this is what the Ramones had always done - to them it was the most exciting thing in the world at that moment. And I loved the fact that it had been the same for 25 years but it never felt old and tired, and loved that anyone I ever dragged or forced to go see the Ramones would walk away from the show just bursting with energy and burbling with excitement.
My dream is to start an all-girl Ramones cover band. Just for fun. Some day, I will make this happen. And we will walk out to "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "Joey" will never take her jacket off and "Dee Dee" will always count the songs down "1234!" and "Johnny" will always stand in that familiar half-crouch, leaning back just slightly, flailing away at the Mosrite in a blur. Maybe that will console me somewhat that I'll never get to see the Ramones again.
Maybe.
The Ramones: NYC 1978