Day Four: in which our hero is feeling all of the emotions

Much like Vanessa Williams, The Almighty very much saved the best for last. The venue was sold out, the crowd were up for it, the band were up for it, and the whole thing was immense. Halfway through I even began to ponder if someone connected to the band had been reading this Substack, as each of the negative points I mentioned yesterday were addressed, including mixing up the setlist a little (adding a song, nothing major).

It was the perfect climax to the tour, and left me happy but exhausted, wandering the streets of Kawasaki, too buzzed to sleep.

I’m back in Nagoya now, sitting in a cheap business hotel round the corner from Cedar’s, the venue for tonight. It’s a bit of a change of pace, going from being a fan to being on stage. At this point in the afternoon over the last few days I’d be contemplating a beer, thinking about dinner, getting ready to go out and be entertained. Now I’m drinking water, practicing solos and chord changes, making sure my pedal board is set up and ready to go. I’m the one that will (hopefully) be doing the entertaining tonight. It’s a whole different vibe but I can’t wait. You can’t be a musician without being a music fan first, just like you can’t be a writer without being a reader first, and this week has reminded me, viscerally, why I became a musician in the first place: that feeling when the lights go down, the crowd roars, the drummer stands behind his kit, saluting the crowd before sitting, counting in, and the room erupts.

Rock and roll songs about how much we love rock and roll have always seemed a bit naff to me, a bit too self-referential, a bit too route one. It’s one (of many reasons) why I never got on with Kiss: rock songs about rocking… okay we get it. Try writing something with a bit more substance. Bands should be allowed one “I love rock and roll” type song in their career, usually either right at the start (we just wanna rock!) or towards the end (the acknowledging our influences song). Doing it more than once is just lazy. All that said, as I’m sitting here trying to put into words how I feel after four nights in the crowd, about to go on stage myself, it’s those songs that keep coming into my head. “God Gave Rock and Roll to You”, “I Love Rock and Roll”, “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)”, “Rock Brigade”. Naff though the lyrics may be, they do capture an emotion, a shared, collective feeling that is palpable in the videos I’ve posted above.

I’m waffling, tired, emotional waffling, so I’ll stop and leave you with the absolute best of those “we love rock” songs, “29X The Pain” by The Wildhearts, an influences song that not only rocks hard, but also introduced me to a lot of new bands when I first listened to it in 1994, particularly Hüsker Dü and The Replacements. Enjoy.