 |
The art that imitates the life that imitates the art that was the Commitments is just as confusing as it sounds - even for the musicians themselves.
Let's review: A novel about an Irish soul group became a 1991 movie that became a real band - a band that's basically paying tribute to its film version, which was already a tribute to begin with. Weird.
"I'm still trying to figure out that one myself," laughs drummer Dick Massey, who played the role of Billy "the Animal" Mooney, who quit the Commitments in the film, but now runs the real thing. How ironic.
"I'm so close to the woods that I can see the trees," he jokes.
The Commitments has been real a lot longer that it was fiction. Such was the demand for more blue-eyed soul after the 1991 film that the musicians staged a tour - and hired a real singer since the guy in the movie was an actor - and they've been touring ever since, give or take an original member. Massey will be the only one left when the Commitments plays three shows at Sherwood Park's Festival Place this weekend (guitarist Kenneth McCluskey had to leave this tour for a family matter). Two shows are sold out. Some seats remain for the 10:30 p.m. show Saturday night.
If there's any remaining doubt as to the popularity of this band, Massey relates a testimonial. The Commitments was in New York City on Monday to play a Wilson Pickett tribute. Among other soul legends, Ben E. King was there.
Massey recalls, "I introduced myself and he stuck his finger in my chest and said, 'I know who you are. I've been watching you guys from a distance - thank you guys for keeping this music alive.' Every nerve ending in my body tingled. Even saying it again now I get a little thrill up my spine."
There are a couple of strange things about the Commitments that most bands don't experience. One, these musicians aren't trying to do good shows because they want to - they have to. They won't star in a bad sequel, either. Participants of Blues Brothers 2000 take note.
Massey explains, "We don't do bad shows. That's not an arrogant thing to say - we can't do a bad show or we'll shoot ourselves in the foot. They told me before we put the band on the road, 'Look, we spent $80 million making this movie and another $80 million promoting it. If you guys do a bad gig, you're going to screw us.' I promised them we wouldn't do a bad show. It was a bit of lip service for them, I suppose."
That's some kind of pressure.
The second thing is that Massey - a real drummer who played around Dublin before he got the film role - and other serious musicians have devoted their careers to a project that inherently prohibits them from playing their own material. They regularly "stomp up" other tunes from the Motown songbook, but there is no original Commitments music.
"We haven't done anything like that to date," Massey says. "And that's been very intentional. The Commitments wasn't about them writing their own songs. We got blue eyes, we got white skin. I don't know if it was right for us to try to write our own songs, songs that wouldn't stand up to the level of songs that were already there, the Mustang Sallys, the Midnight Hours, the Take Me To the Rivers. That said, we may start to do that.
"I already do some stuff on my own just for sanity. You can't be playing the same songs over and over again, and unfortunately with this show we have to play certain songs every ... single ... f---ing ... night."
As for playing out scenes from the movie on stage, they used to "blow up" McCluskey like he was in the movie - until one show in Nottingham, England.
"We had some pyrotechnics, but the tour manager forgot to tell the theatre," Massey says. "After we set it off, fire engines and police arrived, yelling, 'Where's the guy who got blown up?' It was funny as hell. We didn't get a ticket. We gave them autographs and CDs."
They never did Stonehenge again - speaking of another fictitious band (Spinal Tap) that tried, but ultimately failed to become real. The joke just didn't translate well. The Commitments - whose love of American soul music is no joke - is unique in its field.