Chewie
Button Factory
Dec 9 2023
“Question everything you’re told” Jake Burns sings as I take my seat upstairs in the Button Factory. The between band tracks are always good at a Chewie gig and Stiff Little Fingers greet me inside. I’ve missed girlfriend, who were on first. I’ve nearly missed this night altogether. Let me back step a bit.
In June my brother died. He had been sick for a long time. My mam and 2 other brothers watched on helplessly as he slipped slowly from this mortal coil. Alcohol killed him even though he hadn’t had a sup for the best part of 5 years. By then it was too late. He thought he would die happy when he was enjoying himself. One part of that happened and it wasn’t happy.
In August my Mam died. She had a good life and my pain was like any grieving son but I know I’m lucky to feel it when I’m in my fifties. My mam was my pal, it hurts that she is gone and I still feel the pain of it every day.
Grief hangs on in strange ways. It hides in parts of your body but then an event or a date in the calendar happens. Maybe it’s a smell and that grief comes engulfs you like a flame. Like a tornado with no warning.
Shane McGowan died last week and was laid to rest yesterday. In recent weeks I saw pictures of shane, I saw my brother in him, my brother in his last days. Waiting for death to fall on him at home while we tried to make him comfortable as a family. It was harrowing.
Like practically everyone with a passing interest in music in ireland I met Shane once. It was the morning (can’t say it was the night before as it was about 4am) of Self Aid. I had bunked into the Trinity Ball, don’t remember seeing the Pogues but my encounter with Shane was unforgettable. His laugh was memorable, a sound rasping from his throat with his tongue flying up and down his mouth and very little teeth to hold the noise in. It was a cackle and it was welcoming. I had no idea what he was talking about but we somehow conversed for over 10 minutes, like 2 people speaking different languages but somehow comfortable with each other. I left feeling sorry for Shane and my opinion never really changed. He was a tortured genius. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him a few hours later on stage at the RDS barely missing a beat.
And now he has passed I just think of my brother, those last few years and the lifetime of abuse. Alcohol got my Dad too in the end but not really before his time, he had a life of love and travels and tales. We wanted him to stay for a few more games and Christmas dinners but in February 2018 it was his time to go. “I’m ready, I’ve had enough” he told me the week before he went.
My Mam was similar in August, the day after my brothers funeral was the day she finally gave up fighting. We had been told to expect that day over 18 months previous but we still weren’t ready. She clung on for 7 weeks in the hospice, making sure she saw everyone, hugged her family and left us. It was awful as we were in the hospice waiting for her train to leave the station and no treatment was going to happen to delay it.
As a family we got through it. We cried and laughed together. Their funerals were celebrations of life, much like Shane McGowan’s was this week. And that set me off.
We decided to put up Christmas decorations this year. My mam loved Christmas. December 8 was her day when we were kids. We have the memories and tales to tell so wanted to make sure we were ready this year on the 8th. When we were putting decorations up a chair went on my toe. My toenail receded, the pain was excruciating and the grief saw a gap. It has flowed for days as I find it a struggle to walk normally. My toe will get better, and a plaster will fit over the grief eventually.
So that brings me back to tonight. Dublin had an abundance of gigs. Clashes galore as Paranoid Visions celebrate the anniversary of their Bollocks to Xmas release with a Christmas special gig. Ted Chippington who was a comedian of my youth was in town to play with the nightingales and I was ready with my ticket. And then Chewie announced their album launch date. The same night. I got a ticket, knew there’d be a clash and put off making a decision. My toe made it for me in the end as I ended up on the balcony of the Button factory thinking of my mams first job in a sewing factory and feeling desperately sad as Gordie Walker from Killing Joke, Benjamin Zepheniah and John Hyatt ( from the three johns) have followed Shane’s destiny this week. I love the three johns. Can’t quite explain why but their zany post punk radicalism struck a chord with me when the three chords of discharge, disorder and chaos uk were winning my friends over. I wanted the tunes and the radicalism of the three johns. When they appeared on “the tube” they brought their friends from Bradford down, flying the 1in12 flag. These were my kind of band. The politics of punk but some tunes and sensibility in there. I ate them up and bought their records, learned every word and travelled over to see them. Saw them twice in the 80’s, Leeds and London and fell in love. My love has been with me since and i am so lucky for that as we forged our own family.
As I sit here, Waiting for Chewie I think of torches of liberty, how my mam knew all about the three johns and how shit this week has really been. I’m hoping it improves as a sold out button factory waited on anxiously.
And it sure did. For nearly 90 minutes Chewie delighted their home crowd with a set full of songs from the new album interspersed with some sing along numbers from years gone by. The capacity crowd loved it, arm in arm and voices together. This was a big undertaking for a diy band. The button factory is a step above what has happened in the past. No need to fret as “every day ends with a moment in time” and this day ended with a special moment. Pure class and a sign of the good things in life that need to be experienced and enjoyed as much as possible.
I trooped down to Tara street dart station afterwards. Buzzing with the songs and still feeling the pain of loss. I looked across at the Customs House, lit up for Christmas. My mam loved her trips to see the Christmas lights in recent years. We would drive around town, a different city from the one she grew up and went dancing in. That grief from earlier went back into a corner in my stomach as the joy of Chewie stuck with me. Thanks for the memories everyone x
