“They’re older than I thought.â€
The Beautiful New Born Children aren’t from around here – they persistently ask the crowd – every member of which has taken two steps back from the bespectacled frontman with the fiery eyes – to guess where they’re from. Belgium? Australia? Washington, D.C.? “Berlin,†says a gentleman to my left, between bouts of flailing his mane like Aslan at an illegal rave on Noah’s Ark; I believe him. Christ, you gotta believe: every bone in the body’s screaming for the brain to let itself go, to let the wondrously chaotic mess before eyes frequently dazzled by lights ablaze infect and overthrow the rational senses. Feet twitch, but not like his: our glasses-wearing hero, who we’re sure any moment is going to take them off a la Clark Kent and become some beautiful child of this retro-punk revolution, shuffles maniacally, tiptoeing here, hip-slinkin’ there. Like he’s on rollerskates, on ice, on something that we want, too.
Each song is introduced in a professional manner: this is such and such, the next one’s the second to last. Such measures are necessary: every song, two minutes and some seconds if that, is a fuzz-drenched pop-chorused triumph; words are entirely secondary. “Usually people dance,†says our still-disguised protagonist as band mates simply loiter, like statues in a graveyard. On cue, two attendees surge forward and throw their arms skyward: it’s Pentecostal belief pledging allegiance to the power of rock and roll, all physical and possessed. The senses just go mad for it – it’s like two-for-one beer, this: one finishes and another’s right there already, all bubbly and satisfying. Get tanked, get dancing, freak the fuck out ‘cause tomorrow’s another day of shitty nine-to-fiving, and if that’s all you’ve got to live for then sucker you ain’t alive.
Tube ride, ear sting, late shop, key gets stuck: burn the fucker down with the fire still raging in your belly, behind the eyes, inside a heart absolutely thumping for more of the straight-up sans rocks r’n’r fix. No drugs, nothing: just what can make the everyday fade into the outermost regions of the mind, its core consumed by passion and fever. Crash, slump shattered, let the drones bleat on about their crappy day. Yours – mine – was something else entirely. Where that something came from, we never cared.
this is the video for hey people! made by the guy being arrested : stuk