Gig review: Henry Rollins

Published on Thursday 14 January 2010 18:03

AN EVENING WITH HENRY ROLLINS **** O2 ACADEMY, GLASGOW

FEELING "insanely curious and angry" and being "a junkie for adventure" is how Henry Rollins describes his epic wanderlust, a desire to learn that agitates him into perpetually traversing the globe, a lantern-jawed, tattooed colossus, bounding into troublespots like the unlikely offspring of Indiana Jones and the legendary Polish travel writer Ryszard Kapuscinski. The former frontman of hardcore punks Black Flag seems to be permanently on the road, arriving at this two-and-a-half hour spoken word gig from Timbuktu via Dublin. From Cambodia's killing fields to breaking into the site of world's largest industrial accident in India, the American seeks out the extreme – watching kids recycling syringes in Bangladeshi slums; flicking an obscene gesture at Burmese despot Than Shwe; illegally spreading the music of The Stooges in Sri Lanka, trying to topple the Ayatollah in Iran with the aid of Al Green.

He claims George W Bush used to be his "travel agent", dictating trips to demonised states like Pakistan and Syria, and although he's wary of President Obama's ongoing involvement in Afghanistan, Rollins retains faith and pledges patience in his efforts to rehabilitate America's reputation abroad.

Offering the sort of rare insight only a combination of celebrity, furious work ethic and borderline madness can achieve, Rollins races cars with the playboy super rich in Saudi Arabia but empathises with the victims of Sharia Law's sexual oppression, delighted that even against the odds, nature and cunning can still find a way. For topicality's sake, he reflects on his encounter with the embattled Northern Irish First Minister Peter Robinson and the infidelity of Tiger Woods, before revealing that one of the world's foremost political figures swiped Nelson Mandela's spoon as a souvenir.

Through the bizarre – judging transvestite talent contests and attracting hate mail for his neo-Nazi character in a TV series – to the genuine horror stories, he retains the lightness of touch of a born raconteur, even during the most staggering revelation of all: that the restless 48-year-old has begun a serious relationship with a woman, something that leaves him genuinely worried that he's gone soft.