The Automatik

“Would you like to see my mask?”

We humans rely on the fact that our superheroes are just that: greater than mortal men. But Batman is a special kind of icon: not an alien who came to earth in a meteor shower, nor a man bitten by a radioactive arachnid. Relying heavily on Batman graphic novels and completely discarding the embarrassing Batman franchise of the 1990s, in Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer have gifted us with a spectacular vision of Batman as not only a hero, but as a flawed human being who inhabits a world where the good guys don’t always wear white and sometimes the criminals are clad in shades of grey.
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Kids on TV/Meligrove Band/A bunch of other bands we didn’t see
Streetsville Masonic Lodge, Mississauga
June 3, 2005

All-ages shows take me back to my wanna-be punk youth: grade school gymnasiums converted into crossroads of teenage rebellion, when Merry Go Round was for posers and Hot Topic didn’t even exist yet. I once suffered some jaded scenester who was turning his nose at the idea of sharing a slam pit with a fourteen-year-old, and then I immediately rallied to the defense of the kids who just love music and want to have a good time. Who do you think started it, anyway?
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