Grandad Goes Rocking Again

Grandad Goes Rocking Again by Neil ' Stairlift To Heaven'
McCall

I had been ordered to wear my darkest, most inconspicuous clothes and,
on the way down in the car, had been given a crash course in
twenty-first century rock concert etiquette. Don't dance. Or try to sit
on the floor, regardless of your aching old legs. Don't use the word
"man" as a suffix to sentences. Don't utter the word "groovy" under any
circumstances, upon pain of instant annihilation. I asked if "wicked"
was still current and acceptable, and was told that it could only be
used by trainee moshers in years 7 and 8 and NOT by anybody's Grandad.
For I had decided to treat myself and my 19-year-old son Nathan to a
night out at the Academy, Manchester University's concert venue, to
hear Auf Der Maur. Apart from a Joni Mitchell tribute band, it was my
first rock concert in over twenty years and I was under instructions
not to embarrass Nathan any more than was unavoidable in attending rock
concerts accompanied by ones dad. But rock is on the way back, with a
plethora of great young bands, and it's time I stopped living in
Woodstockland and joined the kids.

The concert was being held in Academy 3, one of the smaller venues on
campus and had duly sold out. Academy 3 turned out to be quite an
intimate room, probably the size of a junior school assembly hall, and
when we arrived the first support band was already in full thrash. The
air was heavy, hot and smoky and it was like being baked, poisoned and
deafened simultaneously; the ambience would not have suited my wife at
all but for me it was fondly reminiscent of student days. We moved on
in, got a drink and stood and stood ?

Eventually at 9.15 Auf Der Maur emerged on stage to a great cheer. The
leader and bass guitarist, Melissa Auf Der Maur, has a good track
record, having played with Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins, but this was
a new venture on the back of a solitary but critically acclaimed album
from which the single "Followed The Waves" had been played on MTV2 and
impressed me and no doubt many others. She was supported by an
anonymous four-piece band; drummer, lead guitarist, keyboard player who
doubled on guitar and the rhythm guitarist, a girl who also relieved
Melissa on bass for one or two songs. If this sounds heavy, it was, and
when four guitars were playing in unison we were blasted by a throbbing
barrage of neo-psychedelic noise through which Melissa's vocals came
swooping and soaring. And can she rock! She spun and arched and sent
her gorgeous auburn curls tossing around her shoulders and over her
face; when she sang the sensual "Taste You" in French I wouldn't have
swapped her intelligent and restrained sex appeal for a bagful of
ludicrous Britneys, Kylies, J-Los or synchronised slutty MOBOs.

But between the numbers she appeared almost vulnerable, eager to please
the crowd, lightly and modestly tossing aside their shouted assertion
that she was better than Courtney Love. There was more than a
sprinkling of my own generation in attendance, men of rock with leather
jackets and balding crowns accompanied by women who they'd probably
describe as their "chicks". We knew we were on to a good thing, for
whilst nobody is impressed by someone who has seen, say, Pink Floyd
playing a soccer stadium, being present at one of their concerts in a
seedy cellar in 1967 (with Jimi Hendrix thrown in for 50p!) would be a
treasured memory. I felt that, on Easter Monday, for a tenner I'd seen
a potentially great rock star in the confines of a dingy student bar. I
hope I'm right.