(no subject)

at the last minute my friend remembered he had a minidisc recorder that he could lend me. I was halfway there before he told me, I had to rush off the subway to get back to his apartment and pick it up. It was worth the extra subway fare and the four dollars worth of batteries. I was still early, too, even after wandering around alone for an hour trying to find the place. Wandering in every direction but the right one to find the place two blocks from where I started. I even got to see the sunset because I walked so far out of the way. And when I finally found the place there was no one there. I just walked into the bar and asked what was going on and this polish guy tells me to come back in an hour. So I came back in an hour and waited with the eight or nine other people dumb enough to be there so early. and It was cold. and they ended up starting an hour and a half late. and there was a tiny sliver of a moon rising. So I clocked in about three hours of waiting and wandering before Jackie O Motherfucker opened. But, like I said, it was worth it.

I was right up front, one person from the stage, so the recording levels were a bit high.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Live at the Warsaw 4/03/03 - speech
5:21 128 kb/s 5 megs

This is what happens when Godspeed plays in brooklyn. Right before the encore some kid about five feet behind me starts spilling his wigger heart out about how they're "the best band in the motherfucking world". Then Efrim gets up to do a speech (none of the band members has said a word up to this point, even with the audience screaming out random things like "Oklahoma Don't Know!" and "Tohu va Bohu"). He can barely get through the speech with all the audience participation going on. Some of the things these guys were throwing back and forth were just fucking funny. Random exclaimations of "Fuck Bush!" all through the night (and then a guy way in the back shouts "Bush really isn't that bad a president!")

The energy in the air was palpable, you could drink it and start spitting fire.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Live at the Warsaw 4/03/03 - unknown
17:17 (unintentional) 96 kb/s 12.4 megs

The third song they played, I'm putting it up because I've never heard it before. If someone knows what this is please tell me. Or perhaps it's new. As they played this projected on the backdrop were scenes of piliars of fire, oil wells, smokestacks, smoke, red flames, grey smoke. Over and over, superimposed. The image of the tower of flame in the center, the two drummers below it, the two bassists just in front of them, one with his back turned, then sophie barefoot with her amped up violin, and in the foreground the two guitarists hunched over their guitars like they were metal and wire children, and in the corners the third guitarist and the cello looking somber. Playing this huge music, so simple and strong and exhaustive.

and someone right next to me was drawing pencil sketches of everything, didn't stop drawing the whole time. Even did a picture of me and the guys next to me with our heads tilted up and jaws slack. Someone else was scribbling furiously on a little notebook between songs.

so many stylish white people in one concert hall. It's hard to keep pretending I'm not a minority.

I was thinking about the music the other day, the particular feeling that these orchestral rock bands can conjure. I think that Sigur Ros is the opposite of Godspeed. When I listen to Sigur Ros I am filled with a feeling of.. possibility. Potential. It's a buildup with no release, filling and fulfilling. Very happy. Godspeed, on the other hand, takes its themes and.. pulls all the emotion from within them and throws it all up in the air, in supplication, with bowed heads, like a prayer. The songs are like ceremonies, but instead of building up potential the songs release potential, sending it all in a huge slow-moving wave outwards. towards something. And afterwards you are exhausted. Like you just tore down a building with your bare hands. It's apocalyptic music. Kiss me you're beautiful these are truly the last days.

There are more recordings but the other ones you could probably find anywhere. The first disc ran out before the end without me knowing it so I didn't get a chance to record Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls. A shame.

And in the lobby was a table covered with all the albums I've been searching through secondhand and indie record stores for! everything! That Set Fire To Flames cd I've been desiring for years plus right below it a new Set Fire to Flames cd that I didn't even know existed! It just came out! I would have bought it right then and there but doing so would preclude me from ever getting back home. It was a tough choice but having slept on a subway platform before I decided it would be better to have a bed.