Waiting To Go Live

About ten years ago, when he was fourteen or fifteen, a friend of mine was in the sweaty throes of his first band-crush. The unlikely objects of this fevered obsession were an odd mish-mash of Old Testament-fixated yank noiseniks.

He was so in love with The Pixies they used to keep him awake at night. His devotion knew no end. He would write to their record company, send off for posters from the back of the NME and, on the day Trompe Le Monde came out, he rushed from school and bought it twice one copy to listen to, one to look at. He was a nut; he would have stalked them if he d had the opportunity.
Around this time it was announced that the band were to play a concert in Belfast. Now, my mate lived about as far away from the city as you can get before the Tayto packets start changing, and he d never been to a show in his whole young life. But there was no way he was going to miss this. So, after persuading/extorting his folks (it was a school night after all), rounding up a few proto-grunge pubescent compadres, and blagging a lift from one of their reluctant mums, he ended up outside the venue on the night of the gig.
They arrived early but, because they didn t know their way around town, they decided just to hang around the doors until they opened half hoping a busload of Kim Deal-lites would pull up and be dazzled by their encyclopaedic b-side wisdom.
It didn t happen.
In fact they got pissed on. The weather was awful, it was grumpily dark and, just to add insult, all the shops nearby were shutting-up, while none of the pubs would let the youngsters through their doors. Luckily enough, though, one of them found out that, if anyone was caught short, there was a wall round the side of the venue that served the purpose rightly.
Eventually my friend needed to go, so he made his way to the spot and had a slash.
As he was making his way back, though, he heard a whistle and, looking up towards where it came from, he saw Black Francis looking down at him from a first floor window.
And this is the good bit. According to my friend, the world s then coolest fat slaphead asked him why he was so wet. He replied that it was because none of the bars would allow him or his friends in because they were too young. Black looked perturbed. Then, telling his dripping devotee to hold on for a moment, he disappeared briefly inside, before re-emerging with a plastic bag that he carefully lowered down towards him on the edge of a broom-handle.
With that he went back, telling the youngster he hoped he would enjoy the show.
When my mate opened the bag he found it full of bottles of booze. Not lager mind. The proper stuff a ten glass bottle of vodka, gin, tequila.
Needless to say, he and his crew didn t spend much longer huddled outside the venue. Within ten minutes they d found a dingy alleyway and spent the next hour and a half downing spirits at a rate that would have made the Red Army proud at Stalingrad.
They made the concert, at least they made the hallway, but the bouncers wouldn t let them in because they were too drunk. Eventually, after the projectile vomit and pass-outs, parents were called and a two-hour road journey that would have frightened even Hunter S. was embarked upon.
They d had a wonderful night.
The point I m trying to make is that in your early-mid teens there s something magical about the first time you see a band live (and it s an appropriate word) that you ve only read about before or watched on TV. If you re lucky, you may even have a snack-sized rites-of-passage squeezed into ninety minutes of feedback and mini-lazers. But, and this is important, if you re going to get drunker than you ve ever been before, sicker than you ve ever been before, or fall barmily in love, then you need someone top-notch to provide the soundtrack, simply because celebrity never shines with as much white clarity as it does when you re young.
Which brings me (eventually) to Belfast s current drought.
It seems that more pop stars get married in the Republic than come to play with their Northern chums. Off the top of my head, over the last six or seven months, we should have had Beck, Moby, The Super Furries, Shack, Elastica, The Flaming Lips, Primal Scream, Macy Gray, and The Charlatans.
We ve had Gomez (William Hague singing the blues) and Idlewild (Pavement one a dog s pissed on). That s paltry.
I ll admit that sometimes I find myself wondering that if this reluctant isolationism keeps The Stereophonics away then, perhaps, it s a price worth paying. And, to be honest, SFA aside, I haven t particularly missed any of the aforementioned acts. You see, there have also been a lot of great, memorable nights spent in the company of more specialist big brother acts (nights that have grown from a determination to entertain ourselves, seeing as no-one else seems overtly keen to do it for us). We ve had blinding shows from the likes of Clinic, Make-Up, and, only last week, Yo La Tengo. But these gigs are for the more grizzled amongst us, the ones who think tapping a foot and miming with particular intensity to Howe Gelb will help shift the gut. Sad bastards. Like me.
It s just that, although I m happy enough now, I m worried that a vital constituency are being neglected. That the showy razz that only a big act can bring is being sorely missed.
The club scene is doing its bit. DJ Shadow, Oakenfold, Weatherall, Darren Emerson, Mr Scruff, Billy Nasty and lots, lots more have all been here or hereabouts. But, when it comes to promoting big-time live music, unless the Secretary Of State has your CD and you can guarantee you ll finish your show before the lovely residents of Stormont go to bed, then it seems it s no-can-do.
And that s a crime. Because there are all these stories out there waiting to happen behind the dry ice and the smoke machines and they ll only go to waste.