Rollins takes Clearwater crowd on verbal thrill ride

"Don't you start me talkin'; I'll tell everything I know," Sonny Boy Williamson sang.

Henry Rollins may not have told everything he knows Tuesday night, but he told enough of it to fill nearly three nonstop hours.

How nonstop? The water bottle he brought when he took the stage about 8:10 p.m. went untouched until he walked off holding it a few minutes past 11 p.m.

The sold-out Capitol Theatre crowd of 462 went along for the ride, which was less of a long and winding road than a wild careen across the globe and through the nooks and crannies of Rollins' psyche.

Rollins first made a name for himself as the last and longest-lived front man of Los Angeles punk band Black Flag, then fronting his own Rollins Band, authoring several books and acting in film ("Heat") and television ("Sons of Anarchy").

But his spoken-word performances - he prefers "talking shows" - have provided his most consistent and direct contact with his audience since the days of Black Flag.

Rollins prides himself on his focus, but that doesn't mean his monologue runs in a straight line. A discussion of the effects of Sharia law on Saudi Arabian women circles through his traumatic experience at a high school dance, for example.

But that's the skill Rollins has honed over the years. Like the Saudi driver he described speeding through crowded streets nearly but not quite crashing his car, Rollins always keeps things between the yellow lines no matter how often he seems headed for a spinout.

It's also what keeps him from coming off as a know-it-all blowhard. He displayed a near-encyclopedic memory of names, facts and figures during the show, but they always were the means to an end, never the end themselves.

Plus, while he fires verbal darts at the rich, powerful and ignorant, his favorite target is himself. It's a combination of humor and humility that is increasingly rare in someone with any degree of celebrity.

What's most striking, though, is Rollins' enthusiasm for travel, music and life in general, especially considering the often misanthropic and self-loathing lyrics he wrote and sang with Black Flag and Rollins Band.

Highlights included Rollins recounting his stint judging "lady boys" on "RuPaul's Drag Race," flipping off Burmese dictator Than Shwe and turning a Sri Lankan teenager on to The Stooges' "Fun House" album.

Toss in a story about Thanksgiving at actor William Shatner's house and a pretty fair Barack Obama impersonation ("I'm speaking in 12-point Geneva type"), and you have a routine that didn't overstay its welcome, even at a hair less than 180 minutes.