Currently streaming on Netflix, “Last Days Here” tracks the sorry saga of heavy metal has-been Bobby Liebling’s near-triumphant return to the stage. I don’t know about you, but I always feel just a little bit better about myself when I see creative-type guys like Bobby rise and fall and sorta half-ass rise again. If gives me hope that not ALL is lost. It also helps that I’m not an aging, bug-eyed, rotting-skinned crack fiend occupying my parents’ “sub basement” in my middle age as depicted in “Last Days Here”.
As the lead singer of some 70’s metal group named Pentagram (never heard of them), Bobby destroyed his rock god dreams (and the those of his band mates) by selfishly sabotaging a potential future with Columbia Records during a very unfortunate recording session. They coulda had it all, Pentagram. Instead, they had Bobby. And so the dream died. And everything faded to black.
If you’re like me, you like to lift up the proverbial rock to see what crawls out from under it. I highly recommend this doc because not only are Bobby and his put-upon parents unbelievably odd and hilarious characters, but the film manages to woo you into rooting for Bobby to get clean (with the help of his loyal sidekick, Pellet) and for Pentagram to rise again. I won’t give away the end…but it’s quite unexpected.
WINE PAIRING: My wife is still away at an HR conference so I had my Cousin Lorenzo over and we totally locked into this film with a robust 2011 St. Francis “Old Vines” Zinfandel from Sonoma County. It was kind of perfect, too, because Bobby Liebling uncannily resembles a twisty, withered-up old vine.
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