In 1975, The Tubes rocketed out of the San Fransisco firmament with an unholy, feral blast of rock’n’roll. Married to the shlock-horror of their highly theatrical stage act, they were the missing link between Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls. Four decades later they are back in the UK to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of their self-titled debut album.
In a show that sprawls way past the two hour mark we get much of that record; numerous costume changes from Fee Waybill, one of the four original members still in the band and the man who continues to be their magnificent focal point; and a wildly overblown performance that is every bit as riveting as it is ridiculous.
After a muscular ‘Getoverture’, Waybill makes his first appearance of the evening. In his brown trench coat and matching fedora, he looks like a rather crumpled Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. As he moves through the vocal gears on first Sinatra’s ‘This Town’ and then a wonderful cover of Gene Pitney’s ‘Town Without Pity’, Waybill proves that even at 64 years of age his voice can still shift effortlessly between that of a sonorous croon and a more deep-throated roar.
After The Tubes’ “first big production number” – a suitably bombastic ‘Rat Race’ – and an instrumental burst from original band members Roger Steen (guitar), Rick Anderson (bass) and Prairie Prince (drums), plus David Medd (keyboards), who has played with the band since 2006, we get Waybill’s first costume/character change. He returns to the stage as a prisoner in a straitjacket from which, Houdini-like, he wrestles himself free during a vitriolic ‘Mr Hate’.
As the theatricality of the stage show takes over, Waybill later re-emerges as some
leather-clad bondage fetishist for ‘Mondo Bondage’. Here he suggestively uses a flashlight whilst looking like some grotesque hybrid of Blaster from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and the 70’s professional wrestler Kendo Nagasaki. A further metamorphosis sees him appear as a cheesy, unctuous quizmaster for a tremendous ‘What Do You Want From Life?’, where like a cross between Foreigner and Kiss the band harness their mid-80s AOR energies to some fiercely unbridled rock power.
Fee Waybill is far from finished yet, though. Before the night is out and after a hilarious, surreal schtick that hears him reminiscing about growing up in Phoenix, watching Tarzan and aspiring to be Charles Atlas, he manifests as The Creature from the Black Lagoon. A joyful swagger through ‘Sushi Girl’ acts as a perfect musical accompaniment to Waybill’s almost vaudevillian routine.
And no Tubes’ show would be complete without an appearance from Waybill’s most famous alter-ego, the drugged out Quay Lewd. For the show’s grand finale of ‘White Punks On Dope’, Waybill teeters back onto the stage on foot-high platform boots and dressed in full drag bringing with him memories of The Tubes’ appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test back in 1977 when their highly controversial performance of this song prompted local councillors in Portsmouth to ban the group from appearing in that town.
In forty years, the parameters of public decency and moral outrage have shifted inexorably. Fee Waybill is canny enough to recognize this and his performance here tonight is acted out with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Yet for all of its absurdity and the fact that it veers uncomfortably close to being a complete parody of its former self, the modern-day Tubes’ show is still rattling good entertainment and the most tremendous of fun.
Photo credit: Simon Godley
More photos from this show can be found here
The UK tour continues at:
12th August – Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh
13th August – Robin 2, Wolverhampton
