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Here To Have Fun Tony Fletcher puts down his laptop and heads to New York to experience IDLES, crowd watch, dance (a bit) and above all, have FUN

Here To Have Fun

Tony Fletcher puts down his laptop and heads to New York to experience IDLES, crowd watch, dance (a bit) and above all, have FUN

by Tony Fletcher, Contributor
first published: October, 2024

approximate reading time: minutes

IDLES... have a power to make me feel young in a way I’m surprised by.

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.

Images of signs relating to sound dampening 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.

Black and white image of IDLES on stage

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.

Black and white image of IDLES audience

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.

12 year old drummer Ash performing on stage with Idles

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. Ash and his dad got off the F Train at Bergen Street. I was one stop beyond, Carroll Street, a 15-minute walk still ahead of me to some kindly donated digs for the weekend. Sunday morning, I wrote about Ash as my first post on the ‘All Is Love’ IDLES community FB page, and was showered with love, because IDLES are all about love and thankfully, and unlike so many other people on FB, the fans share that ethos. Ash’s mom soon popped up with a message of thanks for the lovely write-up and a recent picture of Ash at work in his home studio. Sounds like she took it in her stride.

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:

 “We are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.”

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.

Tony Fletcher
Contributor

Tony Fletcher is a writer, podcaster and musician who lives in Kingston, New York. This article was excerpted from his twice-weekly Substack column, reprinted with permission. Tony currently plays with The Dear Boys and Hudson Palace and hosts the monthly Fanzine Podcast. 


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