Читать книгу The Jesus Lizard Book - The Jesus Lizard - Страница 19

It was the summer of 1989, late on a weekend night at a dimly lit Chicago club in the nowhere section of the South Loop, two hundred people packed into a theater space called Edge of the Looking Glass. It was loud, very loud, and about ten seconds into the music he came flying off the stage like a possessed man. He staggered past me and I tried to focus on the stage. With only one lightbulb above the stage in a smoke-filled room, it was a little hard to make out, but there they were. Like a steam engine tearing through a tornado, they drilled the music into my skull. After about forty minutes of drink, sweat, and spit flying everywhere, they were done, and so was I. My life would never be the same. Like a junkie looking for his next fix, I had to see it again, right away, and as often as possible.

For the next ten years I went where they went, at least in the United States. My crappy well-paying job at a bank afforded me the opportunity to travel often to see them play in different cities. My motto was: Get close, get hurt, have a good time. I became friendly with David, David, Duane, and Mac over the years. It was truly a thrill to wake up, get on a plane, rent a car in city I may have never been to, go to a soundcheck, check into a motel, have dinner with them, drink, go to the show, drink some more, and then do it all over again the next day. I never got to Paris, but I’ve been everywhere else in Texas.

One of my fondest memories is the December 1993 show at CBGB. (It was the club’s twentieth anniversary.) When David jumped into the audience, he accidentally kicked me in the eye, leaving a shiner. I wore it with pride when I went back to work two days later.

Also in 1993, I was with them over a four-night stint in Southern California, the third night being at Jabberjaw in LA. Supposedly located in a rough part of town, it was about the size of your average dining room. They roared through a set for about ninety minutes that had the walls streaming with sweat.

England’s Bush became fans in the ensuing years, and invited the band to open for them at eleven shows in suburban outdoor sheds. This was 1997, and Bush was drawing upward of twenty thousand people to these mall-like venues. One of the stops was in Milwaukee during Summer Fest at the Marcus Amphitheater. As we walked toward the stage, just prior to them starting their show, I decided to watch from the photographer’s pit. During the opening song, David Yow jumped off the stage and made his way, mic and cord along for the ride, up one of the aisles. Spotting a kid in one of the Jesus Lizard’s T-shirts, Yow proceeded to climb all over him. Just then a security guard came over to me and shouted, “You’re going to have to get him back on the fucking stage!” I nodded and knew that wasn’t going to happen. As always, Yow would come back to the stage how and when he wanted. Forty-five minutes later, the Bush fans were still standing in disbelief at what they had witnessed. Singer Gavin Rossdale and the rest of his band similarly stood in awe at the side of the stage. As Greg Kot from the Chicago Tribune said, they weren’t Chicago’s best live band of the ‘90s, they were the world’s best live band of the ‘90s.

A number of years later, in November 2008, a press release was sent out. The Jesus Lizard would return to the stage in May of 2009, and play shows in Europe and America throughout the year. I went to see them in Nashville, their first US show. They roared through a ninety-minute set like a machine. Same as always, spit and sweat flying everywhere. Nothing had changed. They were what they had always been. Just four guys I knew as friends, who would walk onstage, plug in, and gloriously lay waste to any venue in the world. I traveled quite a bit in 2009, and saw them thirteen more times, the last on New Year’s Eve at the Metro in Chicago. After the last encore, they departed the stage with a quick wave goodbye.

If you’re reading this passage it’s probably because you have your own memories of seeing them perform. Maybe you saw them one time or one hundred times. It was always the same and always different. And always fun. Not much more needed than that.

BERNIE BAHRMASEL