Gimme some Sugar, baby.

Every male at the gig has a Manbag.

Even the ones who horse up late with red faces holding cycling helmets. What can they possibly have in those bags, I wonder.

Their  Gym gear?

An iPad, a charger, a copy of Proust and a chicken tikka wrap?

Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and watch?   - ( Which is how the old man remembered how to bless himself)-

I remember the days when men had a packet of fags and matches  in one pocket of their pin-striped  suit  jacket, and a rolled up hanky, a tin of Zubes, coins and a single key in the other.

His roll of money would be in the arse pocket.

These men however are a different breed.

They wear flat caps and waistcoats and designer stubble. They stand around in groups of 5 or 6, looking like the Kaiser Chiefs, holding artisan beers , talking loudly about web-in-air, play station games, and how much their runners cost. They talk about women too. I am on the smoking balcony getting a respite from the people in front of me. I am in the exclusive venue known as The Sugar Club in the heart of the capital. Irreplacable, overlapping, Burmese teak lines the walls, and I am resplendent on a soft leather candle-lit banquette, vibrating with the sound from the state of the art speakers. The Irish Times describes this room as – “a  venue to die for ……….. with a pristine sound system that renders the rest of Dublin’s night life cruddy in comparison …………………..

The man beside me is talking loudly on his phone. He has what looks suspiciously like a home perm, a black wax jacket, open-toed  sandals and a giant bunch of keys hanging out of his pocket on a chain. He involuntarily turns to give me the once over, and I practice looking aloof and remote. This is a new departure for me. But, I am here to see a man who has been cool as a breeze since before I was born.

Lonnie Liston Smith will be 73 years old at Christmas.  He has played with the likes of Miles Davis, and Pharoah Sanders. The sound is jazz ,funk , fusion , acid and soul,  all tied up in a tangled knot that he pulls tighter or unpicks depending on the moment. Since he first plucked  Astral Travelling from the ether AND  the  electric piano that he was trying out for the first time, he has been writing, recording and touring, playing Glastonbury in 2009, and being sampled by numerous artists including  Jay Z, La Fouine, Mary J. Blige and Malcolm Mclaren.

The bald man in front of me should know better.  He roars out the name of his idol while he is actually talking. “LON - NIE” he shouts with his hands cupped over his mouth, as if Mr Liston Smith has actually forgotten.

Somebody should take control of audiences. I’m thinking we should go back to the days when a suited MC, who was NOT a Hammer, came out and told you what the story was, and how to behave.

Think John Kenny from D’Unbelievables in a pale blue shiny suit with his hair oiled with Brylcream.

“Lads, yee can’t be at that. Have a bit of respect for the singers like, and don’t be roaring up at the stage. Lads, will yee EVER sit down and turn off those curse a jayzus phones, and stop filming stuff yee will never watch , oh and the jacks is at the back on the left.”

In the absence of an MC some random people had taken to the stage as a support act. I thought they were roadies till they started playing. The visuals on the screen behind them announce their name with some kaleidoscopic effects that are soothing and hypnotic. EARTHSHIP are in the house. They give a good tight energetic performance, although the female vocalist is drowned on some tracks and superfluous on others, and their set is overlong, they were onstage longer than the main act.

“EXPANSIONS” bellows Baldy  to Lonnie Liston Smith whilst in the middle of saying that he was supposed to be in the States accepting an award that night.

“Now you KNOW we ain’t gonna leave here without doing Expansions “ says Lonnie smiling.

Lonnie Liston Smith at The Sugar Club – Dublin  22/08/13                        Pic M.D.M.

The crowd  go wild. In his haste to get on down and shake his thang, the man in front of me throws his jumper over my drink, and nearly breaks the banquette trying to get out. His friend has to be tapped to be told to sit down by a woman whose nostrils are flaring. I repair to the bar where because I am a midget, I am ignored, or nudged out of the way by Kaiser Chiefs. I remonstrate with one of the chiefs. He tries to tell me he has been there for ages.

Liar.

The impossibly beautiful barmaid is whipping up a storm of Mojito’s and Manhattans served in frosted glasses, and when I am ignored again, the chief turns to me and says –

“You’re totally being blonked, loike” .

Yes, yes I know.

I give my seat to a man with a v neck vest cut to his belly button, and march my way down to the front, and sit on a lovely empty seat conveniently placed right beside the stage. I could tickle the drummer from here, but he is drumming with his hands behind his back and I could lose an eye with the speed of the sticks so I desist. The handsome square jawed security man is bearing down on me ominously.

“Ahem, you can’t sit HERE” he announces over the roar of the crowd and the finale which sees everyone up and shaking it all about.

“I’m going” says   I. “I was only resting my feet.”

The majority of the audience has no memory of the sixties and seventies, yet they are immersed in the culture, the clothing, the music of that era. In many ways they resemble their Grandfather’s  - in their shirtsleeves drinking from bottles , listening to an old man playing an organ. The more things change the more they stay the same. It was because I was so strategically placed that I managed to shake this old man’s hand and tell him how great the music and his performance was. His hand is dry and warm.

As am I.

M.D.M. 

August 23rd 2013.