lenny kaye tour diary: part one

For the last few years, I’ve been privileged to work with one of my personal heroes: Mr. Lenny Kaye, rock critic, compiler of the Nuggets box set and longtime guitarist for Patti Smith. A few days ago, Lenny dropped a line mentioning that he was about to start a tour of Europe and the Middle East with Patti, and asked if we’d like him to write anything about it. The answer was obvious: “of course!” So for the next few weeks Lenny is going to be submitting a tour blog, chronicling the ups and downs of life on the road and abroad – first stop: Beirut. As always, Lenny’s insights are sharp and insightful, tempered by years on the road. For those of us without a summer vacation in sight, his travels are the next best thing.

7/8 08
A crescent moon rises over the Mediterranean, shining on the ancient city of Byblos, twenty six miles north of Beirut along the coast of Lebanon. Founded some five thousand years ago, the city lays claim to being home to the invention of written language as inscribed on papyrus, whence cometh the title of that eternal bestseller, the Bible; and is even mentioned in that selfsame work ( 1 Kings 5:32) as providing the source for the lumber used in Solomon’s temple.

Tonight, however, it has a more post-mod distinction. Amongst the ruins of a fort along the sea, once manned by the Crusaders, it is the setting for a rock concert, attended by none other than the President of Lebanon, who, surrounded by machine-gun security, looks on bemusedly as the crowd rushes the stage. They had sung the national anthem of Lebanon when he entered the open-air theater; now they are shouting the letters of yet another anthem: G-L-O-R-I-A! And as I play the traditional three chords, much as I’ve done in some form or another for the past four decades, I thank whatever Gods endlessly tussle in this region that the music has given me the means to travel the world to make noise divine.

I have been on all manner of rock and roll tourage in my on-the-roadeo life, from get-in-the-van and sleep-four-on-the-floor tri-state specials to a private jet that dropped the band into a festival site in Switzerland before winging us back to the show we had scheduled that night in another city; ten week slogs where you forget where you are and why you’ve been and just know it’s another stage in some town or another; to a special one-off in a fancy uptown cultural institution (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for instance) where you feel like you’ve traveled miles even though it’s only a matter of fifty blocks or so; or a stand at the local punk-rock dive across the street. But this summer’s outing has a shape and easily enclosed symmetry that lends itself to the diary form, the be of logging. And yes, I am privileged to be the host of this one-sided chat room.

For a fortnight, I’ll be bouncing from one festival to another with the band I play in, covering a territory that ranges from the Middle East (well, one star-crossed show, see above) through Europe, north and south. The festival format, with it’s catch-as-catch can and genre serendipity, places us (names withheld to protect the innocent) within a world music that is amazingly diverse, the sound of the human race in song; and the nonstop itinerary, that will take us above the Arctic Circle and below the Pyrenees, lends itself to this eMusic equivalent of a postcard, a letter from the front, a call placed late at night to the ones you love.

Much has been written about touring, mostly in songs penned afterhours in that proverbial motel room, i.e. Bob Segar’s “Turn The Page.” And usually, most people –who have “real” (as opposed to “surreal”) jobs – can rightly have an “aw, poor you” view of such bemoanments. Yet, truth be said, beyond the glamour and the glitz and those moments on stage that make the twenty two hours of Getting There (not to mention the lifelong preparation) come into focus, it is a physically and mentally draining form of mobile existence, and once the novelty wears off, it is Work. And no, I would never trade it for any other exis-dance.

The one thing that those who write the songs, or even talk about their on-the-road experiences – except for, of course, Jack Kerouac, who understood its zen pitfalls as well as pit-rises – never touch on is what I call the Eternal Present. Once in motion, away from the before and after of life, you truly get into the appreciation of the ongoing moment, for that is all we are. Our only task is getting to The Show, which has its own immersion into now-time, and it’s easy to forget that which happens fore and aft. You are the fourth dimension, moving through the third, and I second that emotion.

First, however, becomes the beginning, and the opening leg of our journey takes us to Beirut. I have savored the sound of this imminent embarkation all the preceding month when people ask where I’m heading, and coupled with an abiding fascination with this part of the world, both metaphysically and musically, I am looking forward to this special gift from the rock and roll travel agency.

Two months ago it seemed, given the sudden spurt of violent political unrest in Beirut, that our show would not happen. But the Byblos International Festival, as it is called, is an ongoing institution, this year playing host to such international artists as Mouse On Mars, Michel Legrand, and Belgium chanteuse Dani Klein, and thus it is even more important for us to give our support and encouragement to Lebanon in its effort to preserve its cultural lifeline. This is a country that sits astride many schismatic fault lines in the region. For years, Beirut was a cosmopolitan society that provided a crossroads of east and west. Looking at the photographs of Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra eating in the restaurant to which we are taken before the show, along with Arabic stars whose popularity I can only imagine, one realizes that it is necessary to preserve a dialogue not only between faiths, but arts themselves, so that we may understand each other and preserve our common humanity.

Beirut itself, despite the roadblocks and military checkpoints, is easy to explore, and remarkably free from menace. I walk alone to a promenade near the sea and eat grilled fish; I explore the area surrounding the Bourj, the aptly named Martyr’s Square, and its shrine to slain president Rafik Hariri, whose name is synonymous with the reconstruction that followed the country’s brutal civil war in the seventies, and who promised hope and a sense of national identity to a people who formerly felt themselves on one side or another of Beirut’s divisive Green Line. I take a taxi ride on streets that seem to have no rules at all, a dodge-‘em of cars and motorbikes in constant swerve.

The hope that is the future, told in the classic cadences of the music of the moment. That is our message tonight in a city that has seen civilizations come and go, empires topple, layers of archeology and rubble obscuring the detritus of history, hopes and dreams washed over by the sands of time, a crowd singing along to the exultant cry of “Gloria!” as if their very lives depending on it. And it does.