Praise Jesus

Around this time of the year, music hacks, bloggers and general music nerds start wrestling with our top 10 lists and choose the best live show of 2009, but all my bets are off until this Friday, when the greatest live band I have ever seen, the Jesus Lizard, comes to town one final time. Although there was no such thing as the Jesus Lizard having a bad night, and they were nothing short of incredible the 10 times I’ve seen them, there was one show in particular that sticks out in my memory, in one of Canada’s sleepiest burgs, Ottawa, at a dance bar called Barrymore’s, our Lord’s year of 1996.

Barrymore’s had a capacity of about 1,000 people, but with Ottawa being, uh, Ottawa, only about 30 people showed up. The Jesus Lizard, of course, couldn’t have cared less that nobody was in the crowd and stormed into their opener, “Then Along Comes Dudley,” off of their flawless 1991 record, Goat. The tune starts with a slow, deliberately creepy bassline before guitarist Duane Denison finally busts everything wide open with an Andy Gil-styled angular guitar attack, followed by singer David Yow yelping the opening line, “This woman’s crazy.”

The band had been onstage, playing said creepy bassline with drums plodding away behind, but after about five minutes, Yow remained nowhere to be seen. The three members just kept plodding and hammering away until Yow finally showed up at the side of the stage. Within seconds he had quickly stolen the glasses off the witless stage manager’s face, threw them on his sloppy mug and with a maniacal grin, stared unblinking while walking towards some sort of invisible target that only he could see. We just assumed he was walking to the microphone so the band could finally start the song, but once he walked past the mic, we quickly realized that he was walking straight off the five-foot stage, perhaps due to the skewed vision he was getting from his newly acquired goggles—or so we thought. With the audience being more than a bit thin, we had to rush over to catch him as he lifted one leg off of the high stage, and set him back on the floor. His stare had remained unwavering as he kept walking ever forward, away from the stage. It was then that we realized his target was the island bar that faced the stage, about 30 feet away, occupied by two buxom bartenders dressed up in promotional Budweiser garb.

As Yow approached the island, the bartenders thought it was some “rocking good time” and were dancing, laughing and doing some sort of goofy devil horns hand thing. Yow then jumped over the bar, and with one fell swoop, knocked forward all five draft spigot handles with his arm and stuck his head under the gushing amber nectar, sopping it up while fighting off the security and buxom bartenders with his one free hand. After a good solid minute of wrestling and chugging, Yow wiped his beer-soaked face, returned to the stage and played the best hour of live music I have ever seen.

Do not miss this chance to see the best live band you are ever going to see. The Jesus Lizard play at le National with Grand Trine on Friday, Nov. 13.

SHE’S THE MISTRESS OF A MAN WHO’S CRAZY TOO…
JONATHAN.CUMMINS@GMAIL.COM