Lemmy At The Family Inn
Australian summers are hot,
even into the night sometimes,
and this night at the Family Inn
was one of them, soaking shirts to the skin.
Some barely remembered Aussie band,
Lightning Rock maybe, warmed the crowd
with passable covers of Judas Priest
between the lead singer sucking on an inhaler.
The stage was big enough for them,
but not for Lemmy’s Motorhead.
Crowding themselves onto the stage
he stepped to the front in black,
with unseen white boots
that were laughed at as “pussy”,
but only behind his back. Raising
his head to look out over the sea
of black T shirts pressing aggressively,
drunkenly, dangerously towards the stage,
swearing their greetings at a “take no prisoners” hero,
he spat the remains of a rolly
over the heads of the guys whose elbows
were on the stage. I thought of holy relics,
like the foreskin of Christ, and how
someone would probably take
it home as an intimate treasure.
After over an hour of deafening,
runaway train rock and roll
he cursed the air conditioner, the tiny stage
and smashed his great white bass
into the false ceiling and left.
We stumbled outside, greasy,
tired and somewhat deaf.
Lemmy came out the back too,
for a smoke and to shake the hands
of the star struck headbangers
before heading off to party
