Rollins Band
with Skunk Anansie at Avalon
by Sheril Stanford
Let’s get this out of the way right now. The most outstanding live shows are the ones that are visual spectacles as well as aural ones. Those shoegazer bands may be great, but they’re about as interesting to watch as a record spinning around on a turntable, and they keep your attention for about as long (of course, this is all presuming no ingestion of foreign substances). So, having said that, I don’t mean to obsess about Rollins‘ looks, but let’s face it, it’s hard to ignore the man’s size, even if you tend to find muscle-bound, swaggering men a bit foul.
The lights go down and a recording of “rap lessons” begins. That classic “language tapes” voice, with ultra clee-er pro-nun-cee-a-shun, teaches us to say “What time does the museum open?” first as a slow rap chant, then ever faster, until Rollins strides out from behind the curtains. Wearing shorts, lots of ink, and nothing else, Rollins looks like he belongs in a boxing ring rather than on stage with a mic in his hand, surrounded by drums and guitars. Your first thought is that, quite simply, the man is huge. That powerful physique, along with Rollins’ roaring vocals and air punching delivery, make for a pretty heady combination. Rollins dances around like a prize fighter, crouching and leaning into the songs, constantly moving, feline and feral and ready to spring, a black sun rising on the huge horizon of his back.
He delivers with a jolting roar lyrics that are both emotive and evocative, but it’s more like the emotions are evoked to be fought back by sheer force of will, rather than to be accessed. He introduces “Shame” by saying, “Here’s a song I hope you all can feel… You don’t have to admit it – I’ll admit it for you.” And there’s plenty of Rollins’ patented sermonizing – cigarettes are sheepishly ground out all over the club, albeit briefly, as Rollins goes on a dope-and-butts tirade about friends dying while somewhere someone’s laughing (did someone say “Dirty Boulevard”?), after which he launches into “Saying Goodbye Again.” The high fivin’ MFs around me all start yelling and pumping their fists, and it’s depressing to think they’re responding for all the wrong reasons. Before playing the low-key (comparatively speaking) “Inhale, Exhale” Rollins tells the crowd, “Here’s one that’ll give you time to think about things, and rest yourself, cuz the ones that come after are gonna fuck… you… up.” The seething “On My Way to the Cage” follows, and the pit, heretofore surprisingly sedate (maybe because there’s already so much physicality on stage?), erupts.
Like the lava in L.A., behind the explosive Rollins the band flows fiery, hot, and powerful, the sheer magnitude of the sound threatening to overwhelm. The band is as tight and hard as Rollins’ quads. Only the bass player, who mesmerizingly strokes his strings, eliciting big moaning bass notes, wears a shirt – there’s more skin on stage than at a Miss America Pageant. Overall, the sense is that nobody on that stage is fuckin’ around – this here’s dead serious stuff. The set ends in a maelstrom of noise and light. Rollins lightens up just a tad when the band comes back for an encore rendition of “Liar” which he introduces as “our brief moment in pop culture.” Raw and powerful – everything a live show should be.
The Rollins band had a hard act to follow in Skunk Anansie (do they sit around reading muscle mags together on tour?). Skin compels you to watch her, her motions intriguing, falling somewhere between sinewy and robotic. The band is riveting – riveting not like “catches your attention,” but riveting like brutally blasting and driving iron pegs into metal or concrete pieces to force them together – that kind of riveting. Know that super-collider thing that the government built out in the desert to smash atoms? Are you getting the pic-chur?
