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One of my friends took me to a Swans show a few years back. I had only ever listened to Your Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky a couple of times when it came out and liked it well enough without having a particularly visceral reaction to it. We went to the show in Boston on The Seer tour and my friend handed me a pair of earplugs when we got there. We smoked a joint and went into the lovely, cramped, dank venue and bought tallboys of PBR. Once the floor was pretty full the lights went down and the band took the stage. They began with a massive, crushing assault of sound that I could feel reverberating in my diaphragm before stopping for a moment of silence and then issuing forth an even louder, more sustained burst. These were akin to the opening shells of an artillery barrage, and soon the the tubes in the amps were glowing red and Thor was beating a steady crash of symbols into my soul. After the first song (or maybe it was during a lull, I can't remember) Michael Gira looked up at the booth and yelled something to the effect of "Where's this air coming from?" or "Why is there air blowing on me?". And the venue turned off the weak fan mounted in the center of the ceiling over the front of the crowd that had evidently been distracting Mr. Gira. He then proceeded to lead the band in an unrelenting, awe-inspiring performance that felt like a glorious tour of duty. That show was the single most intense concert going experience of my life. It held every part of my attention for its entirety. My thoughts were reduced to simple bodily functions like remaining standing and slowly moving away from the stage over the course of the set. I put earplugs in only after a few songs and almost certainly did permanent damage to my ears. That show ruined all other concerts for me; no other band commands your attention so completely and rewards you so greatly for it. I love their most recent three albums (Bring the Sun is incredible and at times reaches the heights of that live show) but I find time to listen to them all the way through so infrequently that I have never explored beyond those; I still feel like I'm discovering new songs each time I listen to them.
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Jun 17, 2015 04:58
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 23:06 |
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Nanomashoes posted:Ok but now listen to Swans are Dead. Just finished it. Quite a good live album; it's just as dense and captivating as their studio work. I had it going in my headphones on the subway earlier and it put me in a sort-of trance state. Thanks for the recommendation. Also, I wrote "symbols" instead of "cymbals" in my previous post. loving homophones.
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Jun 18, 2015 04:27
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