I’m here to have fun.
Having fun online, is of course, somewhat oxymoronic for
most of us most of the time. So, in the midst of the usual weekend deadlines
for Substack posts and college papers, I decamped from my home office, stepped
away from the online world and went to NYC to have a good time. The
social kind. The interactive kind. The kind of good time that Kurt
Vonnegut used to have when he was alive and crusty living in Manhattan and
would go out to buy an envelope and take it to the Post Office despite there
being more “modern” ways of handling such commerce. I went to dance.
My first stop – or at least the first I emerged
from to breathe that joyously toxic NYC air, the streets laden with traffic,
people everywhere, bars heaving - was in Forest Hills. Back in January, writing
about IDLES as my Best Gig of the 21st Century, I’d vowed that next time they played within 100 miles, I’d
make perfectly sure I had tickets and the date in my diary. I did both as soon
as the band announced what turned out to be an overly ambitious NYC date late
in September at an outdoor venue that holds 13,000 people. As a result, I was
left holding the second ticket I’d bought, unable to convince my younger son or
any friends to cancel plans and see one of the best live bands currently
straddling the earth.
That doesn’t mean none of my friends attended. One of them I
reminded promptly got himself on the guest list (but has kindly let me use the
photos he took with that pass). And in trying to unload that extra ticket, I
discovered that two of my best friends had tickets for the same block, ideally
situated centre and first tier, above the General Admission seats. After
catching the end of a (re)invigorating set by a recently reunited The
Walkmen, we met on the concourse for a beer, which for me meant finishing off
the mini-wine I’d picked up on my way in - overpriced of course, but the
general civility and friendliness of the Forest Hills Stadium staff, including
the extremely convenient $5 bag check for those of us carrying weekend
backpacks, compensated.
I went to refill my water bottle because the IPAs at Forest
Hills may cost $16 - plus tax and tip - but at least the venue supplies proper
water refill stations… and when we heard a muffled voice that sounded very much
like that of Joe Talbot, we climbed to our respective seats in Block 601,
admiring how Forest Hills Stadium has somehow discovered a way to tamp/dampen
the sound beyond the arena itself, so that when you descend the stairs, it’s
like being transported a mile or so away and only after you ascend them again
do you find yourself appreciating how loud the music is.
IDLES, by the way, were fantastic. Every experience in
life is wrapped in context, and I had no reason to expect anything like the
show I’d seen in 2019, which took place inside a club inside a bowling alley
inside a giant suburban mall outside of Albany. Back then, I recall thinking,
“This is the closest I will ever get to seeing the MC5 in their heyday.” (On
which note, Dan Epstein and
I just unleashed our latest episode of our Crossed Channels podcast, dedicated
to that very band.) Yet even in
this vast outdoor space, with unsold seats rising all around us, the band was
able to establish much of that same club vibe. That comment I made about being
one of the best live bands currently straddling the planet? I take it back.
They are the best that I know of.
IDLES
may not have made an album to match their second, 2018’s Joy As An Act
of Resistance, but it’s hardly for lack of hard work and effort across
what is now five long players, and it’s testimony to their own
ethos that the live set can draw from them all without ever letting up. The
General Admission crowd moshed like mad, various members jumped in to join them
at times, and Joe Talbot spoke with that incredible decisiveness he has about
why it had meant so much to him that The Walkmen had accepted the invitation to
open
IDLES didn’t “save” me - though they
certainly renewed my faith in live music on a night I needed it back in 2019. But they do have
a power to make me feel young in a way I’m surprised by. I don’t have personal
angst, I don’t listen to contemporary punk, I’ve never been a metal head or
much of a hard rock fan, I’ve never been in recovery, and I don’t mosh. Yet all
the same, I found myself with fist (joyously) clenched, singing along, not so
much jumping about in my seat as grooving.
I also looked around, because it’s who I am and what I do.
And I noted, as I had that night back in Albany, just what a wide demographic
IDLES attract. And being NYC, how that reflected on a wider demographic too.
Further down my row was another older guy, also on his own, also enjoying the
show, and I’d put him a few years above me in age. But in front of me was a
Hispanic (I think) family of mom, dad, and what I guessed to be a
10-12-year-old girl, who knew the songs, and was grooving in her own slightly
embarrassed, massively enthused way, as if this was her first show and she
wasn’t quite sure how to express herself. Oh, and her mom was
clearly on board too.
Behind me, similarly, stood a Young Black Teenager (now there’s a hip-hop name from the past) who had clearly been chaperoned by her, in this case rather unimpressed mother, who remained seated and certainly wasn’t to be heard applauding Talbot’s frequent use of the F-word. And alongside me to the left, also on his own, and quite unapologetic about his own singing along and fist-punching the air, was a 23-year old of Mexican descent, who - and I know because I asked - was turned on to IDLES as a high school senior by the album Joy, as he should have been, and was experiencing his own Joy at seeing his, um, idols in the flesh for the first time. Yes, it’s New York City and all that, but still, throw in the youthful moshers and the various black-clad young couples in their 20’s through 40’s, and you have to credit IDLES for casting a wider-than-usual net.
Now, apparently, IDLES quite often invite someone up from
the audience to play quite often, just as various members of the band spend
occasional moments of the show in the audience. It’s all part of breaking down
the barriers. But this is what distinguishes Ash. Ash is 12. Twelve.
I know Ash is 12 because I rode the subway home with him and
his dad, and also because I didn’t get where I am today (ha!) without walking
up to strangers and asking them questions. (Ash and his dad should be grateful
I didn’t say “Do you want to buy a copy of Jamming?” like in the old days -
though I once formed a life-long friendships that way on a train to
Portsmouth.)
So, I chatted him with them on the platform when they came
down the steps and were cheered roundly, and again on the train itself, given
that the ride back to Brooklyn was the best part of an hour and at a certain
point I figured I might as well. The two of them had a kind of dazed look like
they couldn’t believe what had happened, probably each figuring how they were
going to tell mom about it. When I asked him, Ash told me he was nervous when
he first walked up to talk to Joe in the crowd while Joe was watching the
Walkmen, saying something his love of the band and his dream of playing with
them, but that when that dream came true and he clambered on stage, he wasn’t
nervous at all. Strange though that sounds, I get it.
Best of all, he’d never played the song in question -
‘Samaritans’ - before. Not once. Knew it. Never played it. Nailed it.
As 12-year-old Ash prepares to sit in with the slightly older band of IDLES, adult drummer Jon Beavis looks on.
Dad told me Ash plays various instrument and writes and
records all the time at home. When I asked the rhetorical question - “So there
must be music in the family?” - he said No. Not at all. Sometimes nature just
throws a wild card into the mix.
The reason it took me until Sunday morning to post on FB was because in-between, though I’d already succeeded in coming to NYC to “move around” and “dance” and have what Kurt Vonnegut would call “a hell of a good time,” I’d also had a full Saturday to do even more of it, to fully live out the expression he actually used to close out the sixth chapter of that book A Man Without A Country:
Essential Information: Tony Fletcher is the author of several
music biographies (including his own), former member of Apocalypse and current
member of The Dear Boys, and Hudson Palace, Podcaster (check out his ‘Crossed Channels’ podcast with Dan Epstein), prolific
writer (which you can enjoy by subscribing to his excellent Substack here), former editor of Jamming! Magazine and manager of
the accompanying record label, teacher, and all-round busy person.
All photos by Graham Macindoe, used with permission.