Mission of Burma - Live at Irving Plaza, January 12, 2002

Last Saturday I broke my rule against reunion shows and saw Mission of Burma take the stage for the first time since 1983. My expectations were low; I figured that they were cashing in on their legendary status to make some extra money. Roger Miller probably needed health care to treat his tinnitus, and they surely were making a good bit of money from the $25 ticket prices.

Although the Burma catalog has held a place in my heart ever since I was first turned on to it during my senior year of high school, they had broken up before I had even entered grade school. I never expected to see them, just as I never expect to see Gang of Four, the Slits, This Heat, or Can. When the reunion was announced I skeptically bought a ticket, hoping it would at least be fun and not too disgraceful.

My attitude changed, though. Immediately before leaving for New York (from Pittsburgh) I read an account of the practice show they played for friends in Boston earlier last week; just seeing the names of the songs brought a huge rush of adrenaline through my body. We played the old Ryko Burma compilation in the car, and when we finally got to the show, I had to admit that my cynicism had been shed: I was excited.

But standing in the balcony of Irving Plaza during the opening band, I had mixed expectations. Just how "old" would they look? What did it mean for Mission of Burma to play live in 2002, 19 years after they initially quit? What sort of audience was this? It seemed to consist mostly of males, many around my age, though there were certainly a good deal of older types (probably some who saw them the first time around). How could I justify this while making fun of dinosaur acts like the Rolling Stones and the Who, endlessly touring to aging artifacts and kids who just didn't know any better?

And when the long wait finally ended, Roger Miller, Pete Prescott, and Clint Conley entered the stage and muttered a few meek words about how they were playing two sets. Then, the launched into "Secrets." And I don't know about the 1,100 other people there, but for me, it suddenly came together, like a strange punk spirit traveling from Miller's half-stack to my brain.

Were they that good? No, not really. Prescott screwed up his parts a lot, far more than I expected; Miller also seemed less assured. Oddly it was Conley who played nearly perfectly, which was funny since he had been away from music for so long. All of the songs were slower than they were on the records, as if these forty-something ex-rockers couldn't keep up to their youth.

But this was Mission of Burma; the band that brought art and punk and self-expression together for me like no other: the dynamics, the tension and release songs, the weird loops (run by Bob Weston, replacing Martin Swope)—midway through "Trem Two" I turned to my friend Doug and said, "These guys are the reason I play music," to which he replied "These guys are the reason all your favorite bands got together."

And though their voices were spot-on, the songs were a bit messy, not unlike the Burma of old. But what could contain something like "Peking Spring" or "The Ballad of Johnny Burma?" The set was everything a fan could ask for, playing almost everything that made them great (except "New Nails," "Forget," "Outlaw"... but I digress). The sign on stage reading "No New McCarthy Era" may have seemed like a futile political statement to some, but why couldn't Mission of Burma, the icons that they are, have this chance to put something else across?

Maybe I've over romanticizing it, but even the four new songs were great, especially Prescott's. But maybe I'm just a fan; no matter how uninspired their set actually was, I would have thrived on my own inspiration. I learned to play the bass along with "Signals, Calls and Marches" and turn back to "Vs." whenever I feel that rock music no longer excites me. But I think it actually was great, from my near stage dive during "Max Ernst" to the amazing "Learn How" (which closed the second set). And as sloppy as some songs were, "That's How I Escape My Certain Fate" was the tightest, most rocking performance I have ever seen live. Even the butchered "All World Cowboy Romance," hindered by Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's cheesy guest appearances, began with the same grandeur and power that the original recording had. (And Lee made Mission of Burma look young by comparison).

They were playing the same instruments last weekend that they were in the photos on "The Horrible Truth About Burma." Perhaps it was a time-warp, a return to 1983, before we were applying the prefix "post-" and taking all of the passion out of rock music. Perhaps it was a look to a time when lyrics like "There's a window in my head/There's a window in my heart!" could be sung without any irony. Perhaps it was a return to a time that I never knew, being far too young to be aware of art and punk and the Boston scene and musique concrete. Or maybe it was just a tired re-treading of childish anthems, designed for market potential.

Regardless of what the rest of the crowd felt, it was one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen. Those who didn't stick around for the Pere Ubu cover ("Heart of Darkness") that was the second, impromptu encore missed one of the highlights of the show. After it sputtered to it's end, I left the venue, knowing that I had fulfilled—or at least approximated—an experience that inspired, agitated, and motivated the widest expanses of creativity.