Metro Chicago

Photo by Carlos Canario

After frenzying through his days as punk poster child and Black Flag front man and somehow surviving a relentless tour schedule, Henry Rollins decided to brave the Metro stage alone on October 11, 1985. Staying true to his punk roots and proving that his stage presence had not waned beneath exhaustion, Rollins doled out an powerful performance featuring his trademark limb flailing and lyric spewing, but this time with a refined jazz edge and heavy metal backbone. At the time, all of Rollins’ solo material remained unreleased. Loaded with Black Flag classics and new material, Rollins’ poetic spoken word interjections were a welcomed calm in the otherwise chaotic electrical storm.

Rollins and co have returned to our humble stage several more times since ‘85, including a show on April 1, 2000 (pictured above).