I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 14, 2018] Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Back in 2000, I saw Godspeed You Black Emperor at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.  My friend Lar was in from Ireland and he went to the show with me, which was pretty awesome.

It is one of the most memorable shows of my early concert-going experience.  Which is possibly why I waited 18 years to see them again.

Even though my friends Liz and Eleanor (who have seen them many times) told me to join them in the balcony, to close my eyes and drift to the music, I’m a close-up guy and I wanted to be a part of the show.

The band had a semicircle of chairs on stage.  I should have realized from the get-go that as soon as someone sat in one of them he would basically be blocking everything for me, but I didn’t think it through.

So the show began with “Hope Drone,” which is, as suggested, a drone.  Basically there was a low bass thrum that began before the lights dimmed.   Then the violin came out and the double bass.  And then joined in the drone.  They played it for a pretty long time as the rest of the band meandered on stage.  There were three guitars in total.  One in front of me, one a little behind him and one on the other side of the stage.  Then the two drummers came out–I couldn’t see either one.

The videos had started behind them and the word Hope was visible every few cells, although all of the other cells were filled with a scratchy unsettling gibberish.

Once the drone ended and everyone was in place, they formally opened with “Mladic” a song that I really like.  I had a good time watching the three guitarists playing their various parts.  And it was cool watching Efrim play the parts that were his. 

But I grew a little impatient with mostly staring at the back of the guitarist in front of me on a mostly dark stage.

And so I decided to do something I never do.  I moved.

I moved from my prime cushy spot up front to the middle of the audience.  The sound was  more enveloping which was great but I just hate being behind tall people (I am developing a Napoleon complex).

Even if there wasn’t much to see (the videos can be so repetitive as to be annoying after a while), I still hate not seeing.

So I went from up close for “Mladic” (right) to middle of the audience for “Bosses Hang” (left).

When they started “Fam/Famine” I was on the move again.  I was sure the show would be poorly attended because when I arrived, the parking lot was empty.  But it was quite full in the middle.

I found a small section of open floor nearby.  This spot was great,  I could see very well and was content.

That’s when I realized that Liberty had come out to play “Undoing a Luciferian Towers” with them.  Her sax worked well with the music–she knew just the kind of thing to fit in perfectly with the song.  I’m not sure if she played exactly what was on the record–she seemed to have some improv going on.  It was fascinating that she stood with her back to us the whole time.

Then the guy next to me shouted, “Hi, my name is Tim. I like making friends,” right during the song.  Well, clearly I couldn’t stand there much longer–no chatting during the show.,

So I tried to make my way to the right side of the stage, but I wound up trapped by the side-raised area.  I eventually moved up to the front right–normally a pretty good spot at Union Transfer, but it was all filled in and the very tall people were out in force.  So for most of “Dead Metheny” I was looking at a pole or people’s backs.

During most of the show, the video images on screen were the antithesis of hope.  The buildings and plans were one thing but by the end of the night, there were videos of violence, including a trump rally which, when turned into black and white looked like Alabama in the 1950s.  Showing just how far damaging trump is.

Finally I had to escape the front so I walked out through the lobby to the back of the room, where things were not as crowded.  I was even able to walk up onto that side area where I was earlier trapped and have  a great view for the final song, the familiar “BBF3.”

I’ve always enjoyed this song with the spoken word from the crazy gun enthusiast.  But somehow after the violent images, and the reality of our current world and the recent shootings, I found his gun loving, gun hording lunatic to be too overwhelmingly negative.  It was a major buzzkill even as the music was terrific.

One of the things that I have always loved about GYBE is their ability to build an incredible amount of tension with their instrumentals.  And yet the music always builds to a catharsis that is superlative.  The new album does not have that kind of catharsis.  It’s a bit more melodic (“Bosses Hang” in particular), but it’s not quite as “satisfying.”

And that’s how I felt at the show, it felt like the catharsis never really came.  And yet my friends up in the balcony said it was amazing.

I very much enjoyed the looping that they did at the end though.  Like in the beginning, each musician played some kind of melody and then left the stage one by one until there was just a short loop echoing through the room.  That was pretty cool.

Setlist

1. Hope Drone
2. Mladic [Al]
3. Bosses Hang [*]
4. Fam/Famine [*]
5. Undoing a Luciferian Towers [*]
6. Dead Metheny [F#]
7. BBF3 [N0K]

[*] = Luciferian Towers ; [Al] = Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! ; [F#] = F# A# ∞ ; [N0K] = Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada