“Come on Dad, Give me the car tonight” – The Violent Femmes

THE ageing American punk band the Violent Femmes played the ANU bar in Canberra last week and it was a fascinating show for all the wrong reasons.

In the late 1980s it was rare for a disgusting teenage party to not conclude in the cold light of day (as the last of the discarded bottles of booze-cabinet-raided liquor were found to be distressingly empty or full of cigarette butts) with someone putting a grubby bootlegged cassette into the parents’ stereo for a final blast of “Blister in the Sun”, before a vaguely sober person could be awakened to drive everyone to McDonalds for breakfast in mum’s Camry.

So it was with a nostalgic burst of excitement that I snapped up tickets when word arrived that the legendary party band was back on the road nearly three decades after its heyday, and coming to town.

Approaching the venue one thing really struck us: “Holy crap, this crowd is old”.

Sure I wasn’t expecting a jamboree of undergraduate excess, but the crowd looked more like what I would have expected for the Rolling Stones; heck, the Lou Reed crowd a few years ago looked younger.

And oh, dear god, what were they wearing? Smart casual? Yes, actual smart casual.

Chinos and polo shirts, and oh, dear god, you came straight from your office in your suit.

Had it really been so many years since leaving high school that they’d forgotten the correct dress for a rock show is a T-shirt and jeans?

Did they no longer even own T-shirts bearing the logos of cool bands? Had the jeans all gone for cleaning rags? You can pick up a decent pair of jeans at Rivers for $15.

Things took a darker turn inside the venue.

As I have done hundreds of times before I grabbed some drinks from the bar and headed back to the front of stage to watch the support band.

A security guard stepped out in front of me and pointed to a sign: “No Beverage to be taken beyond this point – ORS Regulations”.

Given that the Office of Regulatory Services doesn’t even exist any more I was somewhat sceptical of the sign’s authority. It cited no acts, bore no seals, was issued by order of no-one.

But it wasn’t the poor security guard’s fault, he’d just been given the worst job in Canberra that night.

Talking to the bar staff it seems when more than 700 tickets have been sold they have to forbid beverages from the main refectory.

Banning glass I can understand, but no plastic or cans is not exactly rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a very, very far cry from rock ‘n’ roll.

We found a seat where we could observe the train wreck. On they came with hope in their eyes and a strung out decades-old song in their hearts.

“Sorry, mate,” the guard would intone pointing at the forlorn sign before returning to Facebook on his mobile phone.

The victims would then progress through the seven stages of grief in around 30 seconds.

Shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and acceptance. Boom.

Making the scene even more poignant, the band’s T-shirts on sale on the night sported the words across the back: “We Can Do Anything”.

Given the sorry state of the crowd “We could have done anything” seemed more appropriate.

But with the crowd management in place, “We can’t even take our drink to watch the band” was more the order of the day.

The band sounded great from the bar, at least.