After a two-and-a-half-hour wait in line, my feet hurt, I’m sober, uncomfortable, and a little sticky from the balmy evening. I feel like I’ve just been on a long car ride with my parents. But this time, I don’t get out of the hot station wagon to find Yellowstone Park, but to find tequila and Pabst (thank god). I am awakened by the smell of the lime, my temperature lowered by the icy tall can; I am cleansed by the salt of the rim and soaked in the tequila -- at last, I am cured.
My line buddy and old friend Aaron talks about local internet God Harry Knowles, and I’m inspired to write an experiential review for you, dear reader, about how I’ve waited in this line of lines to see our hero, Daniel Johnston, famous for making the horrifying reality of mental illness seem cool and hopeful.
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- {Grupo Fantasma}
But first, it’s Grupo Fantasma, who sizzle spicily away. Grupo Fantasma is a talented group of guys who play some sorta Latin party dance fun Rio-hotel-bar music. They’re very good at whackin’ the congas and steels drums, but I can’t help but find them a little annoying.
Aaron tells me that Grupo Fantasma publishes huge signs on the sides of Austin city buses with messages like “Saving Money on Gas is Fantasma –Grupo Fantasma.” Ugh. Now, I’m even more annoyed by these pan-Latin yet still somewhat ethnically androgynous Carlos Santana enthusiasts.
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- {Daniel Johnston}
And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for, an Austin institution, fan-tested, documentary-approved... Daniel Johnston opens his set with “Speeding Motorcycle.”
One wonders if these songs come from a place of holy genius or childish madness. At the end of “Speeding Motorcycle,” the crowd erupts and I wonder if I detect insincerity in their cheers and applause. Is it a true love of Johnston’s strange irony and radiant vulnerability that fuels this audience’s love? Or is it pity? Do we love Daniel Johnston with the same self-serving pity coupled with laughing disdain that we lauded upon Wesley Willis? It’s a hard question, but an important one. But, because this is Austin, and because I stood outside with a bunch of nice people who also waited two-and-a-half hours for this, I’m willing to believe that everyone here truly loves Daniel Johnston, who was crucified in mental institutions for our sins.
“Here’s a song from the Songs of Pain,” he says and sings, “Hold me like a mother would. Like I always knew somebody should. Though I know tomorrow don’t look so good.” Wow. I want to cry.
On another song, Johnston sings, “We’re living our lives in vain, and where are we going to?” He is well worth the wait. He is the real deal: a strange, slightly toothless old man who begs a loving audience to put aside their images and their made-up faces and really feel the beauty and magic of being.
Known for demanding that The Beatles reunite and be his backup band, Johnston covers one Lennon and one McCartney song — “I’m So Tired” and “Live and Let Die” — back to back. I’m glad that he represents both Lennon and McCartney individually.
He finishes the set with “True Love Will Find You in the End,” and it’s delicate, awkward, warbling, and divine. As a reviewer, I’m struck dumb. The most important thing for me to convey to you, readers, isn’t my self-indulgent experiential blather, but quotes and picture (my one crappy picture) of this man who I can’t really judge or describe because he knows things that I do not and may never know. He has stood on the edge of the abyss, looked deep into the mouth of madness, and brought back a message of hope. He wishes only that true love WILL find us in the end. For he knows, as we all should, that this is the only thing that will cure us of the unbearable pain of being.
Seemingly ironically, the DJ chooses to follow up Johnston’s set with “Hells Bells” by AC/DC.
