On Monday nights, there’s this little band called Metal Skool that plays at this little place called Key Club, just down the street from home base Smith. They used to be two doors down at the Roxy and either grew restless or moved venue when bidder higher came calling.
They do 80’s, and fucking hot. Lots of G&R, little White Snake…touch of Def Leppard. Get the idea. I’d never seen, only heard of them before Monday night. When Sosohuman opened a show at Vanguard a few months back, I found out they were headlining the next morning, far after dreams ruled that night.
And I felt something ill about it, ill that I had walked out…ill informed. But as would later be discovered, it simply wasn’t my time.
Three songs in, they welcomed “Kelly Clarkson” with a filthy intro and a perfectly classless invite to the stage. I don’t remember the exact cordialities the band offered, but they fell somewhere within the spectrum of “show us your tits” and/or “get on your knees.”
And I’m cleaning it up considerably.
When the house camera turned to the crowd, I pulled previous quotation marks. It was indeed the only American Idol that anyone in America gives a shit about. And I’m going to tell you why…
She didn’t run. She didn’t cower or hide behind a glossy image. She rolled…glass eyed, heavy and hard onto that stage and powered…and I mean motherfucking powered her way through “Sweet Child O’Mine” and later, “Don’t Stop Believing” by a fistful of gentlemen also known as Journey. And this little thing with a roof rattling voice stole a room and everyone in it.
4 years never too late, Kelly Clarkson is a member the prestigious R Smith wife club.
…
It was 6:21 when I found myself walking to work the next morning, selectively late. High on a sleepless night of sex* and rock and roll, a moment of recall broke me up…
As the closing lights lit Key Club, Metal Skool offered the night’s final words of guidance. “Be responsible. Don’t get behind the wheel if you’re drunk…”
“Do a bump first.”
What an endearing end to the beginning of a perfect night.
