Motörhead

Last Monday I awoke feeling better than I do on most days. Why, might you ask? Not because I had a good nights sleep, not because it was my birthday or any thing like that, but because it was the beginning of the most notorious month of the entire year, ROCKTOBER. And how better to start the No. 1 month than with the first time appearance in Chico of rock ‘n’ roll legends, Motörhead. I understand that you might not have been able to afford the somewhat steep price for a Brick Works show of $18.50, but those of you that didn’t fork over the cash and went to that other show at LaSalle’s truly missed an event that rocked the foundations of Chico’s music history.

When I arrived at 8:15, I was surprised to see such a line around the Brick Works. The fliers said that the doors opens at 8:00 and show starts at 8:30, but due to a cancellation of Soil, the opening band, the doors opened at 8:30 and the show started at 9:30. Not that I was complaining, I didn’t really care about the first band. I was there for one reason only… Motörhead.

Now you may be asking yourself, how could this momentous Rocktober occasion go bad? The answer — it couldn’t. It was without a doubt the best show I’ve been to at The Brick Works in recent years. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the actual music of Motörhead, let me try and explain. Motörhead is every stereotypical bad ass thing about metal and rock ‘n’ roll, including dramatic finishes for every song and patented fist pumping rhythms, all combined in one, three-piece sound explosion featuring frontman and bassist Lemmy, longtime guitarist Phil Campbell and the man Lemmy referred to as the “best drummer ever,” Mikkey Dee. As they took the stage I was very relieved to see Lemmy complete with his legendary mustache, because I had feared earlier, due to the posters of him outside, that he might show his face clean-shaven, but that was most definitely not the case. This being my first view of the man in person, I was amazed at his dress; he was wearing black Maruichi style pants with the buckles down the side, white cowboy boots and a halfway-buttoned black shirt.

Once they started playing it seemed like nothing could stop them, and to my surprise nothing did, there wasn’t even one sound problem. The only time they even paused was to tell us about their new DVD and then it was right back into their musical onslaught. You could tell Lemmy seemed a little upset at having to play to a crowd that size, but once we proved ourselves with our sound appreciation and movement levels, even Lemmy seemed to smile. The people upstairs were hyped as well; so hyped in fact that they frequently would send their not too inexpensive drinks down showering upon us in the lower levels. One thing that I actually liked about this Brick Works show that usually is just annoying, was their use of the lights; especially during one slow song while Lemmy was singing about the Antichrist and was illuminated with a dark green light. Given his abnormal facial features and expressions, it sent out an awesomely eerie feeling.

Being a long time fan of the Head I was glad they didn’t play some of their more popular songs, that in my opinion, sucks. Songs like their cover of “Louie, Louie,” but I was upset to not hear classics like “Motörhead” and “Jailbait.” Regardless, there was still no way to bring me down. As for the rest of the fans, it seemed that most of the attendees did not know even one hit other than a cover of the song “Anarchy UK,” and the all-time crowd favorite and somewhat of a theme song to the band “Ace of Spades,” which wasn’t played until the encore. But their ignorance didn’t seem to affect their enthusiasm and almost everyone left sweat drenched and with a smile on their face. I didn’t see one person that was upset at the performance given by this quarter-of-a-century-old band.

Without a doubt, there is no other way that I would have rather spent my Rocktober first.

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