Henry Rollins
@ Cardiff Glee Club
11/08/2008

It was with some trepidation that I approached this gig, mainly because I try and avoid comedy clubs like the plague. The very thought of
'whacky' comics doing 'imrov' fair turns my stomach so it seemed an odd choice of venue for an icon of US punk. Also I (wrongly) thought that the
crowd would be all Bush-bashing middle class liberals, and whilst they were well represented, most of the sit down audience seemed like normal folk out for a good time. However things didn't get off to a great start in that on arrival I found large signs warning that Rollins would be on at 8.30 sharp and, more alarmingly, that the bar would close accordingly at 8.20 !!

Therefore, with my table groaning under the weight of booze (all for medicinal purposes), we awaited the arrival of the testosterone fuelled Black Flag front man. At 8.30 on the dot a lone man sauntered onto the stage and so began 2 hours and 20 minutes of uninterrupted storytelling. He started by recalling his previous visit to Wales when his bass player had been hit by a bullet, not fired from a gun thankfully, but just randomly thrown from the crowd. In truth its difficult to review this kind of gig other than to say that his stories took in most trouble spots of the world
and he showed that he is now a master of the spoken word format by punctuating his meanderings with facial grimaces, wild hand gestures and
comedic voices.

Thankfully the anti US rhetoric was not overwhelming and the basic premise seemed to be that wherever you go in the world people are just people, and if we only took a chance on talking to other races we would find that we are not that much different. Not once in the 140 mins did he use a script, loose the plot, pull any stunts or even appear to pause for breadth. He just
talked and talked, and in so doing provided an evening of entertainment and enlightenment that was greatly appreciated by everyone present.

Bones