The Tubes A Diabolical Look at Life in the Seventies The Tubes The Palladium New York City April 16th, 1978 By Paul Nelson (Rolling Stone June 1st, 1978) Onstage, the tubes are the Marshall McLuhans of rock and roll: the sheer force of their audio-visual firepower practically demands a ravishing rethink about the media, the source of many of our national, every day preoccupations. An uncanny blend of public dream and private nightmare (or vice versa), this theatre noir troupe's double vision is so diabolical and precise that one is both entertained by the magic of the recreated medium artifact and seized by the simultaneous philosophical comments upon it. When everythings working, it's as if Jean-Luc Godard had directed High School Confidential with Jerry Lee Lewis as King Lear. Two-thirds Terry Southern trash, one-third Nathanael West art, a Tubes set is like a runaway express train through the dark heart of pop America, mixing comedy with tragedy, bullshit with ballet, and throwing off enough sparks to burn a hole in all but the most stagnant of imaginations. As their unimpressive record sales indicate, the Tubes are best seen, not heard. Though there's nothing really wrong with their driving droogy brand of heavy metal art rock, it's not partticulary distinctive either (an exception is the emotional, autobiographical "Got yourself a Deal"). As a lead singer, let's say that the versatile Fee Waybill is one of the finest actors in contemporary music. For good or evil, the Tubes are tied to their sex/violence/rock & roll theatrics like certain Las Vegas lounge lizards are addicted to sleaze. Indeed, the first half of their Palladium set resembled nothing so much as a long crawl through the armpit (or worse) of any majory city. The last half, however picked the pocket of brillance. First, a corps of dancers dressed as urban guerrillas "liberated" the theater, and then Waybill (as Johnny Bugger, a punk rocker so filled with venom he attacks his own band with a chainsaw) frantically raced the length of the stage, hocking up what must have been a half gallon of spit at the entire first row of the audience. During the climactic "White Punks on Dope," some young New Yorkers got to their feet and raised fists of power, clearly identifying with what they thought the song was going to be about, only to have everything backfire on them as Waybill-all glitter, dildo and eighteen-inch platform shoes as Quay Lewd, the ultimate debauched and spoiled rock star-twisted the knife, dragging the startled spectators through as terrifying and hilarious a crucifixion of a rich, bored music business as I've yet seen. When the drunken petulant and whining Lewd first appears, there's a genuine shock, but after five minutes, you realize that you've seen too many real performers literally die right in front of you in much the same was because of ego, excess and misadventure. At their best, the Tubes turn the commonplace into horror, and then that horror back into the commonplace. In doing so, they get the kind of laughs that often make you think. And they exploit everything, including themselves.