Steve Hughes – Heavy Metal Comedy
Steve Hughes @ Rhino Room – Downstairs
10:15pm, Fri 5 Mar 2010
There’s a bit of rain around, and I’m a teensy bit late getting to the Rhino Room – most of the crowd’s already in, and I heard the roar as Hughes took to the stage. I open the door – and the downstairs area is packed. Absolutely chockers. Every seat is full, every bar-stool along the side- and back-wall occupied. There’s probably another twenty people crammed in, standing; there is almost no room for me. I wind leaning against the side wall, almost directly side-on to the stage; there was nowhere else to go.
But you know what? Despite the crap position and the recent rain creating a hot and humid atmosphere in the room, it was totally worth it.
Because Steve Hughes is fucking funny.
Oddly enough, he covered a lot of the same issues as my previous show – but in a completely different way. Whereas Kilstein addressed the hypocrisy, Hughes was more than willing to attack the hypocrites themselves. And the politicians, and the people who perpetuate tabloid culture, and the tabloid “celebrities” all-too-eager to feed them.
He does all this with a very laid back, but almost offensively abusive, tongue, and an eye that takes in the country of his birth objectively. He revels in the role of the outsider: as a heavy metal fan who is proudly a “sport denier”, he mocks the society that provides him with the bulk of his material, then lashes out with leftist-leaning socialist anti-capitalist sentiment of such conviction that it may just change lives.
Because if a hairy metalhead like Steve Hughes can live that dream, why can’t you?