2010 has been some year for re-unions; first Pavement, and now Godspeed You! Black Emperor, rising again from a 7-year hiatus. I've read a fair share of negative feedback on the choice of venue and the sound quality of the night's gig - even with their own sound engineer, arguably any venue's acoustics is going to struggle with the proposition of GSY!BE - and whilst a couple of the early climaxes were perhaps a little muddied, I can't say I noticed too much from where I was standing. In truth, save for the annoying clinking of bottles from the bar staff, the lofty heights of the Troxy seemed an ideal place for the post-rock demi-gods to flex their muscles.
They did so tentatively at first (they had time on their side, after an all too fleeting set from the Dead Rat Orchestra), entering one by one and adding to the ominous drone which slowly engulfed the room (it was a mere matter of minutes before the first screwdriver-on-guitar action), until all eight members were on stage. The opening songs (okay, movements) also felt like GSY!BE were moving through the gears. Playing in almost pitch-black and with little or no acknowledgement of the audience, one's eyes were left to stray to the flickering (and expertly edited in real-time) backdrop images; the haunting shimmer of Sleep was appropriately set to ghostly images of Coney Island's amusement park, whilst I found myself hypnotised during Storm as it actually appeared as though a number of members were playing aboard the top of a moving train. The band bowed out of Sleep and worked themselves up into a cacaphony of industrial-orchestral-metal which, whilst scintillating at first, threatened ten minutes later to undermine the band's mastery of the crescendo.
Yet when Godspeed seeped their way into the quiet menace of Static, it was clear that the magic was still there, as the band accelerated inexorably towards the all-consuming denouement. From there on in, there was no let-up; Dead Metheny was followed by the apocalyptic waltz of Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls, shaking free the shackles originally placed upon it by Steve Albini's limiting production. With the night being brought to a close by Blaise Bailey Finnegan III, all of Godspeed's major releases had been represented, and represented well.
By the time they'd all put down their instruments to shred the speakers with feedback, GSY!BE had been on stage for a collosal 140 minutes. They'll be doing it all again on Tuesday, and once more on Wednesday, and as phenomenal as Godspeed were by the end of the night, you got the sense that they will only continue to get better as the nights go on.
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