Singer, songwriter, author, activist, actor, talk-show host, storyteller, comedian and 21st century Renaissance man — these all describe Henry Rollins. Arguably the busiest man in entertainment today, the former Black Flag frontman is currently making the rounds on his spoken word tour, dubbed "Provoked." As usual, Rollins’ jack-of-trades lifestyle leaves him with dozens of great stories to tell, and a near-capacity audience packed the Barrymore Theatre Wednesday night to see just what was on his mind this time.
Rollins took the stage and immediately professed his love of Madison, saying one of his first on-stage performances was in our fair city more than 25 years ago with Black Flag, and emphasized how warmly the audience treated him. From there, he proceeded to explain the meaning behind his tour’s title. Saying the times we live in give him much fuel for provocation, Rollins began to rattle off a list of annoyances, including Rush Limbaugh’s recent "phony soldiers" comment and Sen. Larry Craig’s ongoing airport bathroom soap opera.
In typical Rollins fashion, he jumped around obliquely, often discussing topics within a topic, as was evident when he told the audience about a conversation he had with an Iraqi cab driver in Sweden. The cab driver said he was only in Sweden to earn money for his family back in Iraq, and Rollins used this example to make a larger point that Iraqis are like us, in that their first concern is providing for their families. Illustrating how Lewis Paul Bremer fired half of the Iraqi army in the beginning of the occupation for alleged loyalties to Saddam Hussein, he explained how angry Americans would be if we were fired by someone in a country like France because he simply didn’t like our boss. He said many of us here don’t like our bosses or the companies we work for, but still continue to work there to make ends meet, and Rollins hypothesized that it was a similar case for Iraqi army members working under Saddam Hussein.
Furthering his American-in-Iraqi-shoes metaphor, Rollins asked the audience what it would be like for us if we lived under a harsh totalitarian regime only to have that regime toppled by a nation such as Belgium. At first we would be grateful, but if Belgian troops remained in America after the former regime fell, Americans would demand they leave and let us fix our own problems.
From there, Rollins touched on his experiences of being asked to sing in the long-forgotten English punk band The Ruts in a one-time only reunion show this past summer. In addition, he offered the audience insight into his many USO trips across the globe which included spending last Christmas with U.S. troops stationed in the African nation of Djibouti.
As the evening wound down, Rollins also channeled his inner George Carlin when he explained his hopes that Mother Nature would declare a jihad on humanity in the form of people being randomly eaten by large predatory animals. He justified his wishes by stating how precious every moment would be to us if at any given time we could have our heads ripped off by a giant condor.
Rollins concluded his three-hour spoken word performance by underscoring the necessity and importance of voting in the coming presidential election. Emphasizing that he wasn’t concerned for whom we vote, Rollins said that what mattered is that we find ourselves in a voting booth in November 2008.
In all, Henry Rollins’ acerbic brand of witty social commentary and storytelling left the audience not only in stitches, but with something to discuss on the car ride home. His straight-to-the-point discourse continues to be a beacon in a world flooded with partisan pundits trying to brainwash viewers to think exactly as they do.
