Howard Marks and John Sinclair: Breathing Air Tour

I first became aware of "King of the Hippies" Howard Marks whenever the biopic starring Rhys Ifans was released in 2010.  Whilst I never saw the film, I picked up Mark's autobiography when I went Christmas shopping last year.  These days I'm guilty of reading very few books.  Those that I do read tend to be written by the late, great Hunter S. so when I did decide to give the book a spin, I was pleasantly suprised with its humour and read the book just about everywhere, occasionally roaring with laughter in the chairs of the dole office much to the confusion of the spides.  Having seen a few of his stand up videos on youtube, I decided there was no way I was passing up an opportunity to see him perform in my local.  The poster stated that he would be appearing with John Sinclair, a name I was not familiar with but assumed he would be either a warm up for the great Mr. Marks as the most famous Welsh stoner of recent history (arguably second only to the members of Goldie Looking Chain) would be a hard act to follow.

Unfortunately though, I was to be sorely disappointed.  With the doors opening at 9.30pm, I figured that either an acoustic set or a warm up act would be on stage for 10.00pm.  As it transpired, Marks and Sinclair didn't appear until around 10.30 where they would sit side-by-side on stage with what seemed like an unscripted ramble.  With the bar bunged and sticky with the Summer heat, this wait wasn't the most particularly comfortable experience sitting around waiting for the pair especially as I was suffering from a recurring shoulder injury due to Muay Thai/BJJ training.  When they finally were welcomed on stage it was by a portly fellow from down south who's forced complimenting session of the audience - "Beautiful people of Belfast.  Wonderful wonderful city" quickly wore thin.  I found him a little irritating due to the fact that when I asked if Marks would be around for autographs after (I had brought my book) was answered with the assertion that "merchandise would be on sale during the interval."  The first thirty minutes of the act felt like an introduction to John Sinclair.  With the entire audience familiar with Marks and his multi-million pound smuggling exploits, the beat poet felt much less important in comparison.  Don't get me wrong, Sinclair by his own right has lived an interesting life - an old school hippy of the '60s, he was one time manager of band MC5, leader of far left, anti-racist group "The White Panthers" and was in prison for three years after giving an under cover police woman two joints.  John Lennon even played at a concert thrown in the prisoner's aid back in 1972.  Here's Lennon's song for Sinclair:

Maybe not one of his finest, but with that Skynyrd twang, arguably a grower.  As lengthy introductions go, this was one of the self indulgent kind.  Marks made some funny quips along the way but they lost some of their impact as the Welshman proceded to laugh at everything he said.  I was left checking my phone for the time, pondering "when will they get to the good stuff?".  Unfortunately, they never seem to get to the good stuff - the mainstay of the performance became a Q+A session, the audience were given cards prior to the first half and told to write down questions for the pair.  When these questions were posed, the whole set quickly became a "Legalize drugs" debate with only the pro-legalization side being presented.  In the time since I smoked my first joint at 17, I've read pretty much every argument for the legalization of drugs countless times.  I could probably shit out a thesis on the subject in about two days, backed up with the scientific findings of Professor David Nutt, all the while under the influence of half of the drugs available on the black market.  Had I known I was paying £13 in to a session of "preaching to the choir", I probably would have spent the money elsewhere - even paying £25 to see thrash metal legends Machinehead performing on the same night would have felt less of a sting and that's coming from someone who's  job has him on a 0 hour contract.  As for the choir, I can't say I enjoyed being part of it much.  Having given up cannibis activism after nobody showed up to Belfast's attempt to take part in the international legalize cannibis two years ago, I was irritated to see a whole bunch of green sticker wearing "Cannibis NI" supporters fawn over Mr Marks like he was Jesus of Nazareth.  An angry heckler didn't do much to add much the aptmosphere I felt somewhat distant from.  I got a few laughs from some of Sinclair and Marks' story telling but I wasn't in complete dismay when they left the stage after another measly forty minutes of stage time post interval.  I stuck around waiting to get my well-read copy of 'Mr Nice' signed but was waiting a good twenty minutes for the pair to finish their second smoke break.  Marks did actually come across as nice as his alter-ego's name sake but rather than bore him with details of my own exploits or ask questions that I now wish to know the answer to, shook his hand and left him to deal with the orderly queue of young hippy girls forming behind me.  This was kind of the height of my experience.  Despite a pair of reasonably good acoustic singer song writers performing together, it wasn't enough to keep me from wanting to go home and drink another beer.  Future gig throwers would be well advised to put these sort of acoustic sets at the begining of the act to entertain the audience waiting for Marks and Sinclair to appear.

Had the whole show been half price, I might have been more inclined to write a more positive review of this overall frustrating affair.  If my Dad were still alive, I would have invited him along, had he come he might have been a lot more vocal about the entrance fee.  I had to dissuade my accompaning friend not to pose the question "If money is a construct then how can you justify charging £13 for this shite?"  No doubt it costs a fair bit to organize a tour of Ireland but the act was already plugging an album Marks and Sinclair have recently released.  I'm not sure how to describe the music - kind of like 'Grateful Dead' with spoken recordings of Marks and Sinclair played over the top of them.  Despite the pair having awesomely rich, deep voices designed for Morgan Freeman style narration I can't say I was willing to dig deep after feeling so ripped off.  If a scripted, well performed stand up by Marks had been followed by Sinclair performing some sensational beat poetry was given, I'd probably have been happy but delivering less than an hour and a half of shite just didn't cut it I'm afraid.

Charlto