Henry Rollins @ Vicar St.
Posted on 30th Jan 12 by Mark Henry Murphy | 
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Punk legend, spoken word artist, singer, author, photographer, DJ, actor… is there anything this guy can’t do? Henry Rollins played Vicar St on January 22nd, if you missed it then don’t miss this review.
Henry Rollins isn’t a man of few words; he’s a man of many. He’s onstage at 8:30pm sharp in a near-sellout Vicar Street venue. He waves, takes the mic from its stand, wraps the cable once around his hand and begins talking while moving the stand out of the way. Some two hours and 45 minutes later and Rollins is in the exact same spot his grip having not changed once, too busy talking at a thousand miles an hour to take a break for a leg stretch, water, or even a ten second breather.
And that’s Rollins in a confusing nutshell – from his early days as Black Flag’s fourth and final singer, through the Rollins Band, his dozen plus published books, decades of acting work and radio DJing to his more recent endeavours with National Geographic and his endless globetrotting, Rollins never does anything as you’d expect.
In celebration of his 50th year on the planet, Rollins brought out a few stories from the vault, including reasons why you shouldn’t stage dive and his fantastic one and only meeting with Dennis Hopper in the late 80s. From there he talked about working with his personal assistant, affectionately known as The Demon, while occasionally slamming his foot down over the American political system.
What’s of most interest at a Rollins spoken word show, and what is probably most surprising from a casual observer’s viewpoint, is his endless and intense travelogue. Rollins spoke at length about visiting North Korea, Haiti, Vietnam, Tibet and India, all of which he’s been to in the past year. It’s a deadly mix of laughter and silence-inducing heartbreak; for every hilarious story about a wizened tour guide there’s a story of a soldier standing in a field accurately describing how his friends were killed in front of him.
Mix in some nutty Indian airline rules and the world’s longest moving walkway that brings you into Kim Il-sung’s gigantic mausoleum, and you have a Rollins show – as deep as it is wide-ranging in topics, confusing, enthralling and somehow over oh-so fast.
Nearing a quarter past 11, Rollins says his goodbyes by way of a call to end racism and wars within our lifetime, unhooks his mic, bows and walks offstage. Rollins is as full-on as he was 30 years ago in Black Flag; that he’s traded punk noise for spoken word insights only serves to make a more engrossing experience. Catch him if you can.
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[...] Henry Rollins a few weeks ago in Vicar Street, wrote up a piece for Drop-D.ie which you can peruse here. Fastest two hours 45 minutes of your life and completely fantastic. I won’t bother [...]