Sorry this is late. I’m knackered. Just spent. I logged 13 hours out of the past 30 with camera in CBGB, bringing my total to 20.5 hours documenting the closing. My emotions have run the gammut, everything from: Why oh why have I sandwiched myself in this big old leaky dinosaur of a venue where I can’t drink water, because that would mean a trip to the bathroom, to What band or scene of relevance has come out of there in the past decade? They sell t-shirts, nay, shower curtains in Urban Outfitters, what the hell do they need my money for??! The answer is in the show itself. What could have been a retro tribute drawn out farewell ode to the past was quite possibly the best show I’ve ever been to in my life. No opening bands, and special guests worked seamlessly into the set list and the momentum never faltered.

The Patti Smith Group charged the stage and without further adieu ripped into Piss Factory. I had never seen her perform with such intensity. Her proclamation to an audience member to ‘Get that G*ddamn camera OUT OF MY F*CKING FACE’ meant that I could actually enjoy the show and not worry about shooting. That opener was followed by Hunter Gets Captured By The Game, Kimberly, and then they kicked off into tribute covers- Blondie’s The Tide is High, The Velvet Underground’s Pale Blue Eyes, into an exquisite rendition of Marquee Moon, complete with Richard Lloyd on guitar. Distant Fingers, Birdland, Rock ‘n’ Roll N*gga were all present, and even a Ramones medley that they pulled off 110%- there was spit, instruments knocked over, meandering anecdotes, boots and socks taken off- and more than a few screw ups even with the aid of lyric sheets. ‘See, we’re here to prove… that we haven’t improved. At all.’ Flea hopped onstage to play the bass torwards the end, and I just had to pull my camera out.

The gray haired guy next to me was starting to explain that they had just covered ‘M-a-r-q-u-e-e Moon by..’ and I cut him off, ‘Yeah, Television. I know. It’s like my 10 minutes and 47 seconds of a happy place.’ Everyone looked shocked. The explanation that ‘I had awesome baby sitter and a rockin’ older brother’ satisfied their curiosity. The guy in front of me turned around kissed me on the forehead for knowing who Richard Lloyd was just as Patti pounced back on stage and ripped into Gloria. 5 minutes into the frenzy she rides off the drum roll into a chant of ‘Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!’ Fists were being pumped, 100s of people yelling along crudely, and one of them might be me. I think I died. No really, something of me got left in there. Patty did an encore simply reading a list of friends that were there in spirit. ‘Richard Sohl… Joe Strummer… Lester Bangs… Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny Ramone…’ ‘Farewell CBGB! You’re as old as Jesus…’ and with that the band trailed off the stage. The house lights never came up.

So for every snarky blogger that’s going to crucify me for saying it was quite possilby the greatest show I have ever seen: suck it. I’m at up to 10 shows a week when it’s NOT festival season, but that’s never gonna change the fact that I was in diapers when Simonon smashed his bass onstage at the Palladium. I got to be a part of something that I wished for the life of me that I’d been on since the beginning, and the performance wasn’t some retro tribute thing- it was raw, live, and the songs were just as rife with relevance. I’ve got a 3 dollars, a pineapple and half a box of crackers to live on over the next 3 days, but there are also 4 shows to go to and I’ve got the leftover camera batteries. How f*cking punk rock is that? I’d like that t-shirt now please.

An audience member asked ‘Where will we go?’ to which she adamantly replied (fists raised, of course) ‘What do you mean? The kids will always find a place to go!’ Her sentiment that CBGB, rather than a temple, is living proof to the world that all you need is a crappy space, like minded people, and just one man to believe in you. It’s not over.

So Hilly, thank you.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 16th, 2006 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Shows, Rants, Quickie Reviews, RIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.