I had planned to see the Sisters Of Mercy, a band as ridiculous as their website suggests. They were appearing at London’s Kentish Town Forum over two nights – a rare outing for the aging goth outfit, who had long since past their heyday of 1985. It was a duty to myself, to see how they had stood the test of time, and possibly the decay of their royalties and limelight. I thought I might enjoy it, and wondered if they would play a song that was very special to me. It is a song that I forbade myself to listen to. The first time I heard it in 1988. I decided then that I would not allow myself to hear it, except after a significantly life-changing event. This was a song that I believed was literally too good to listen to, and haven’t heard since that first time.
In some quasi-mystical way, I thought that if this song were played at the gig I was going to, then this would be a sign that something was fundamentally changed in my life. If it sounds a little wacky, the backdrop to these thought processes was an evening in which I was preparing to vacate my flat – my residence on-and-off during the last three and a half years. That in itself might be considered a fundamental change. But this change was not isolated. It was coupled with the discovery and eating of some psychotropic substances from the dark recesses of my attic. I found them while clearing out the aforesaid attic – an attic full of memories, forgotten possessions and as it happened, mind-bending pharmaceuticals.
So it was with some trepidation that I was about to venture off to Kentish Town. I was donning my glad rags when I got a phonecall from a friend who was returning from a holiday in Spain, and who agreed to accompany me to the gig. We thus arrived togethr some time later, with the requisite lack of ticketsf for such a gig. We promptly purchased two from a helpful pair of touts, for a little over face value. Bargain. Or not very popular, we mused. It turned out to be a well populated affair. Balding goths, old goths. Some were mere characatures of the old giffers with greying, thinning hair, who dye their remaining strands jet black with the subtlety of George Bush. But they were all terribly polite. It was easy to get from the bar to pretty much front of stage, without any well-placed elbows to the mid-section, or knees to the back of the thigh.
They played a few obscure songs that only real fans could possibly enjoy (and in fact the ones I asked didn’t actually enjoy them) and too few crowd pleasers. At this point, my friend and I both pointed out that we had never sat on any shoulders at such a gig, and flailed our arms about hoping to form a ghostly silhouette in the pall of smoke that hung over the black clad crowd. Nor had we sat on shoulders with our arms outstretched to the sides with long pointy fingers extended in a gesture of complete devotion as the last beats of the drum machine from a favourite song blasted into the pale faces of the fans. Put simply, a shoulder ride was in order.
Being heavier, and not that confident that the gaggle of goths would maintain their polite airs and graces if a ginger Englishman was to fall on their heads, I was the first to lift. I was hugely surprised that I managed to lift my friend straight up, without the expected topple, stagger, or burst kneecap. I won’t say it was particularly comfortable for either of us, but my friend got a good view and managed to obscure the views of the patient people behind us. When he dismounted, I suddenly felt my spine expand, as if I was steadily growing taller. This feeling could have been the remnants of the previously ingested psychotropics, but it was quite remarkable, and to be heartily recommended.
Even without being told the merits of taking a 170 pound man off your shoulders after their perching there for several minutes, my friend wanted in on the action, and to lift me up for my turn. The propulsion into the upper atmosphere of the smoke was not a smooth one this time, partly because the lifting started while I was still getting my leg over so to speak. I grabbed a few sympathetic and tall people for support while sitting virtually halfway down my friend’s back which was now horizontal, as he tried to stand up. It was like riding an angry bull for about 30 seconds, as he tried to drag my legs forwards over his shoulders and erect himself. Eventually, after much thrashing on his part and much clawing of strangers’ extremities on my part, I was above the heads of the people who were smirking at our “two beasts with no back” performance. Which was frankly far more entertaining than the performance by the Sisters Of Mercy. Was being aloft someone’s shoulders a life changing experience? Probably. I certainly had a new empathy for contracted spines. But they didn’t play my special song, so now I have to decide for myself whether I am undergoing any life-changing experiences.