Henry Rollins 25 Years of Bullshit Tour (Spoken Word)
Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005 @ U of T Convocation Hall, Toronto

Another year, another visit from Rollins, and each time it seems we review the show here on Spacejunk. No surprises to come in this review, we’re generally a pretty pro-Rollins crew here, so let me just tell you how it went down.

Rollins spoke for nearly 3 hours. Since I started seeing him speak, I’ve been counting the number of times he takes a sip of water over that time period, and this time he had not one sip. Amazing.

The first half hour or so was Rollins going off on his political opinions. As much as he says he doesn’t want to be PC, he really is in a lot of ways, and goes overboard trying to explain himself. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a nice round of US-bashing and Bush impressions as much as the next Canadian, but he just doesn’t do it as well or as entertaining as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Al Franken, and others. Sure he’s up to date enough and he can get a couple good one-liners in, but really, this stuff is really only fun for people who don’t obsessively check out political boards for funny political news and notes.

Luckily though, unlike his last show, this was only a small portion of the event. The vast majority of the show was one of those stories only Rollins can tell, which is why people go to see him — he goes places and does things we can’t, don’t or won’t, and he gives you all the details. It was a story of Rollins’ trip on the Siberian Express from Moscow to Vladivostok, a one week journey on a train in 40 below weather, where he had a terrible time, pretty much on purpose. Another story was about getting proposed to by a Pakistani cab driver in New York city, which has a bit of a downer ending. And to round it out, another tale of Rollins The B-list Actor’s Hollywood Adventures.

If you’re thinking of seeing Henry soon, here’s my advice: People who miss the days of Rollins reading poetry from pieces of paper and getting really down on the world should stay away. Those of you who, like me, were worried it would be a full 3 hours of Rollins’ preaching to the choir, will be entertained. He definitely does his best to give you your money’s worth every time. — Goon

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