“Rock’n’roll is a burning thing. This land was made to burn. Fire cleanses. And cleanliness is next to Godliness,” were the ravings of some burnt-out, ex-rocker turned street-preacher at the top of AC/DC Lane. I kept on my way, through the doors of Cherry Bar.
Familiar, warm and bursting with people, the electricity generated by the buzz around the bar was of an undeniable high quality. The hubbub of bodies, bustling about, so close, so eager to communicate, released pheromones that transferred unceasingly from flesh to flesh, body to body, shirt to shirt, such that this self-mixing cocktail of human perspiration became a drink everybody could enjoy.
The men drank with their mouths while the women drank with their eyes and the band started with minimal introduction.
They came on like a jet engine. Blasting flesh from bone and bodies to the back of the room, the skeletons clawed their way forward, over the top of one another to lay hands on the band that played with disregard. While howling into a microphone the singer tore pages from a tome and littered them across the mass like confetti, the punters greedily gobbled up the words and howled back, reaching with their hands for something more.
The static energy that had been building all night was being discharged, the people were electrified. The crowd was now a big, fat, human-centipede. A tangle of bodies, arms and legs, tightly packed, with Gay Paris as a face, a head, a something, leading them in deranged choreography.
People threw up their hands and cried out, the burnt-out preacher from out front watched, smoking a cigarette from side of stage with a smile nestled in the corner of his mouth like a baby. The band danced. The crowd thronged and the neighbours in the tenements wondered what all the hubbub was about.
It got hotter, the people sweated, their toxic nine to five facades dripping out their pours, pooling at the feet of their exposed, true, stark-raving, mad, screaming selves.
The preacher flicked his cigarette and it in landed in the pool of volatile fluid. Flames engulfed the dance-floor and the cackle and screech of the crowd tickled fleshless ear-holes. Skeletons again, we reveled.
It turns out Satanic Church is held Friday nights, around midnight, is lots of fun and good for the soul.
BY BILLY KILLING
Photo by Emily Day
Loved: Everything.
Hated: Non-Existence.
Drank: Everyone.
