THE COMET IS COMING

THE COMET IS COMING/JOSHUA IDEHEN AT THE ENGINE ROOMS, SOUTHAMPTON – 14/03/23

I caught Covid for the first time last week and was pretty sick. I haven’t drawn or written anything worth a damn since and I’m starting to get worried that the virus has hollowed me out and reduced all my artistry to aches and pains. So tonight is a bit of a test for me. Can I still write a load of passable nonsense about a show? It’s a real concern. 

Spoken word artist JOSHUA IDEHEN is speaking when I arrive, introducing himself to the crowd, congratulating us for surviving thirteen years of Tory rule. He talks about creating a “moment of kindness” and accepting everyone and being nice to everyone and feeling happy, which is lovely and he’s absolutely right about everything he says. No one, in their right mind, could argue with a single word of it. He wants us all to be friends, even insisting that we turn to someone we don’t know in the audience and tell them that they’re “all right”, which reminds me of when you’re at church and you have to shake hands with people and say “Peace be with you”, and he says that all we have is each other, and he’s right, of course, he’s absolutely right about everything. But the whole thing just leaves me craving a dose of cynicism, like how you might crave something salty after overindulging on sweet stuff. Cynicism has a bad name these days, especially with the spoken word artists, who always seem to be unfailingly upbeat and full of unconditional love for their fellow man (which is absolutely right and proper, of course) but I like a bit of cynicism. It sometimes seems like the only rational response to this fucked up world. It makes me feel understood, less alone, happy, even. And isn’t that Idehen wants? Us all to be happy? And does it matter how we get there? If cynicism is my path to happiness is that OK? I’ll still be nice to people along the way. I promise.

Upbeat

It’s a really old and blokey crowd here tonight. Looking around everyone seems to be an old bloke. There are some young blokes and women too, but not many. I’m sort of in the middle: a middle-aged bloke. In front of me a couple are doing a crossword on their phone while they wait.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more aptly named band than THE COMET IS COMING. Like a comet there is a fiery sense of relentless movement and momentum to their music, and like a comet that’s COMING! a sense of real urgency, like, YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW, THE COMET IS COMING!! And if you don’t the comet will just smash you all to pieces. Well, not quite like that, maybe, but still apt, none-the-fucking-less. Very much apt. And the head of this relentless ball of fire is Shabaka Hutchings, or just plain old Shabaka as he styles himself these days, with his intensely rhythmical, repetitive and trance-like saxophone playing. The other guys are good too, but Hutchings is the thing that gives it drive, that keeps it moving forward. He’s quite a stunning musician. Really impressive. What seems to characterise the band is this sense of always pushing things a little further than you think they can, and whenever you think they are about to stop doing something, they always carry on doing it a little while longer and with a little more intensity, which is something Hutchings also seems to embody and exemplify. By the end of an exhausting set – at least for me – it seems almost ridiculously relentless, like they have taken being relentless to new heights. I had no idea that anything could be quite so relentless. It really is relentlessly relentless.

Relentless

I leave aching and tired, still working the Covid out of my body, but relieved that, for now at least, the passable nonsense still seems to be on tap.