The Struts

Even though I’m a relatively cautious and fairly obedient driver, I’m currently in the left lane driving down the freeway passing slower cars at a consistent 80 miles per hour. When I woke up that Sunday, May 29 I hadn’t planned to leave the house at 1:30 p.m. and drive as fast as I could to Atlantic City.

On Friday May 27 I attended Boston Calling, a music 3-day festival, to hear my favorite band, The Struts.  I had been looking forward to hearing them play for weeks and they were on at 4:05 p.m.  I arrived at the venue 30 minutes early so I could get a good place to stand.  Because I was general admission I was behind the VIPs, but I was at the front of the plebians, right behind the chain link fence.  30 minutes go by and the massive screen lights up with a gigantic British flag.  At curtain the band bursts onto the stage and all of us savages in the back went bonkers.  The people around me sang every word, as did I.   We never stopped moving.  The band was scheduled to play for 45 minutes.  It was nothing, but I didn’t care. But then, all of a sudden, they left the stage after 30 minutes.  There was no explanation.  The duet with Paris Jackson wasn’t great.  Was that it?  I was devastated.     

I knew the band was playing at the Borgata casino on Sunday night in Atlantic City.  After the disappointing concert, I toyed with the idea of going.  I kept ruminating about it all day Saturday.  I knew a proper Struts concert would be phenomenal.  When I woke up Sunday morning I was still undecided, but listened to my intuition and bought a ticket as there were a few still available.  I wasn’t worried about my line of vision.  As long as I was in the same room as the band I didn’t care.  I knew I couldn’t drive back after the concert so I booked a really cheap hotel.  My husband read several reviews that the plumbing wasn’t up to snuff so he got me a hotel with a toilet that worked. I got in the car at 1:30 and arrived at 7:30 p.m., just before the 8 p.m. start time.

I parked on the very top level of the casino parking lot because there weren’t too many people around.  I grabbed my bag from the back and changed into my dress in the car.  I quickly applied some makeup and fluffed my hair then I made my way to the venue.

It turns out that the Music Box theater is very small and every seat is a good one.  I got to talking with the people next to me.  The couple on the right was seeing them for the 12th time. The person on my left had seen them six times.  I felt like an interloper.

The warm up band was fantastic.  It was a band from Philadephia called Nick Perri and the Underground Thieves.  Mr. Perri was the singer and played lead guitar.  He played strong, beautifully, virtuosic. Turns out Perri is a platinum selling songwriter who has placed music in movies, TV shows, and commercials.  The connection to that night’s concert came full circle because the band performed with The Struts at various outdoor festivals. Tonight Mr. Perri was going to sub for Adam Slack as guitarist.   

And then it was time for The Struts.  The band is a classic rock band.  They’re British and the lineup is lead singer, songwriter and pianist, Luke Spiller, guitarist and songwriter, Adam Slack, bassist Jed Elliott, and drummer Gethin Davies. 

Spiller is known for being over-the-top with his clothes, but tonight he’s wearing a top that has sequins on the front, but not on the back and it’s a little large for his frame.  It looks like he took it from one of the older ladies at the casino.  Mr. Perri, as substitute for Adam Slack this evening, is wearing a cheap, black long-sleeve cowboy-styled shirt with short, tacky fringes.  But Jed Elliott is the one looking spot-on in tight black pants, boots and a black shirt unbuttoned a little at the neck.  

  When Spiller sings my body becomes electrified and grows taller.  He’s the ultimate rock singer.  It’s as if it’s what he was born to do.  His presence is supremely confident and his perfectly proportioned body conveys it in every sway and swagger, which makes him supremely sexy.  I love the core of his voice.  It’s this beautiful, rich sound that comes from the front of his neck just a touch above his collarbone.  It can be rough, scratchy, deep, falsetto, but always effortless, on key and, oddly, happy.  I love that he doesn’t try to hide his British accent.  Over and over it’s been said that if Freddie Mercury and Mick Jagger had a baby it would be Spiller, but it’s the most perfect of observations.

The band’s sound opens my heart and every molecule in my body starts to shimmer and shake.  The songs open with a full, hard consistent beat that has lightness to it, a curious kind of happiness.  A kind of theatricality without being overt.  

The words of the very first song, Primadonna Like Me, are deliciously inviting.  

“Do you wanna feel primadonna like me tonight?/Do you wanna?/Oh, don’t you wanna be a primadonna with me tonight?/Come on, bring it on/Don’t you know it’s all about me tonight?/So come on, try it on/Feel primadonna with me tonight“

I’m a nice woman who thinks of others and takes good care of her family.  But at this moment, Mr. Spiller is offering me a decadent proposition and I’m going to do it.  Hell yeah.   I’m in and I’m feeling primadonna.  The whole room is electric, lights are flashing everywhere and everyone is singing.  

In the song Body Talks, Spiller is talking directly to me and making me feel like the most beautiful, the most wanted woman in the world.  

The words go:  “Your lips are a conversation/That face is a song/If it’s my imagination/Stop me if I’m wrong/I need to know, know, know/What do ya need, need, need?/What do ya like, like, like?/’Cause I’m going to be it tonight”

The fact that he, or any man, will change himself to be whatever I want is intoxicating.    

The words always invite you to come along for the fun as if the song is being sung directly to you.  In their newest song Fallin’ with Me he says, “You’re coming with me/Let’s take a dive/Meet at the rainbow/9:45/Wear something trashy/That’s what I like (yeah)/We’re on the rooftop/Jumpin’ off the sides.”  It’s as if you and he are going to live the dangerous, fantastical L.A. nightclub dream.  Jumping off the side with no mention of a swimming pool below.   

But my most favorite song is Dirty Sexy Money.  It’s a messy concoction of words about sex,  and money and rockets and, not the least, a “sex-crazed tiger full of dynamite.”  I feel like that line could have been a dare.  “I dare you to write a song and fit in the phrase ‘sex-crazed tiger full of dynamite,’”  and he did.  It’s a beautiful image.  

The chorus is: “She got money/Dirty sexy money/My high-street honey/She knows what she’s got/Because she’s so shit hot.”  What is shit hot?  I’ve never heard those two words put together, but in this context it’s supremely perfect.  Same with dirty sexy money.  Once you say it, it’s exhilarating.  In one song, in one chorus,  he’s managed to put into the lexicon two new and exciting phrases.  

The night ends with all of us waving our hands in the air belting out the words to Could Have Been Me: 

“I wanna taste love and pain/Wanna feel pride and shame/I don’t wanna take my time/Don’t wanna waste one line/I wanna live better days (just better)/Never look back and say/Could have been me/It could have been me“

Tonight, I don’t have to look back and say I could have been at the concert. And now, I get to sleep in a comfortable hotel room thanks to my shit hot husband who supports me no matter what.