The Barbican Centre, London
22 March 2001
“This guy played at The Barbican. About 200 people watched the show. The jam session was awesome. It rocked a snow leopard’s ass. The crowd roared like a lion. WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS. Rock over London, rock over” – sorry, is that not enough? Bollocks.
But, fucking hell, man, Wesley Willis. Live and direct, in the flesh, huge behind a synth tastefully decorated with an ultra-rare Jack Skellington (from The Nightmare Before Christmas) doll, belting through a set including “Saddam Hussein”, “Rock’n’Roll MacDonald’s”, “Suck A Big Gorilla’s Dick” and (I think) “Cut the Mullet” (always good tonsurial advice, it must be said. Unless you’re Nick Cave, but then few people are. Well, one, to be strictly accurate.) A crowd collectively in the grip of what can only be described as glee did, indeed, roar like a lion as Wesley delivered the goods.
Alternately grinning and glowering, exhorting the crowd to say “RAAH!” and generally rocking Batman’s ass with help from a series of almost ecclesiatically white and shiny songbooks bearing variations on “It’s time to rock. It’s time to roll. It’s time to get into the groove.” And boy, it is, on all three counts. Know this, you fuckers – Wesley Willis is a true original, genuinely out there, the bastard offspring of Captain Beefheart and a guy shouting on the bus.
When the set was over, the opportunity was there to meet the man himself, and lo, a fuck of a lot of people moved forward to partake of this wonderful moment. During which, he nutted them jovially, told them to say “RAAAH!”, and smiled beatifically. Oh, and healed them of their ills, cast out demons and unclean spirits and stuff. Probably. Leastways, my piles seem to have cleared up…
The jam session was, indeed, awesome, and rocked the asses of pretty much any large mammal you could think of. RAAH!
-DEUTERONE-MU 90210, DEUTERONE-MU 90210, DEUTERONE-MU 90210, DEUTERONE-MU 90210-
