It being over 9 years since
the last encounter
I journeyed to Coventry to see
Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A worthwhile trip all round.

To despatch the routine –

• The lights dim (I mean dim) and a drone grows in volume. After some time, Sophie Trudeau appears and begins to play, The noise is quite thrilling as the others appear one by one to play.

• As tradition begs, the set begins with “Hope Drone”.

• The lights remain dim throughout. I chose to stand close enough to the stage to count them: 3 guitars, 2 bass, 1 violin, 2 percussion. That’s eight.

• Passim, visuals from 4 oldschool projecters fill two screens behind the band. These are variously wildfires, scenes of riot and ruin, some vintage military hardware – all calculated to reassure you of how worthwhile the human race is.

• They play for 2 hours, uninterrupted by any vocal link. As they depart, a rather loud guitar loop plays as the visuals continue.

• No encore.

So far, so predictable. Some might say “Surely this is a group of semi-visible people making a loud discordant noise” –
how wrong can you be?
What more might one say?

• The mix was very well controlled. The violin was prominent throughout.
• The visuals were the best I had seen them use; I stood behind the fella swapping the loops for about 20 minutes and I can tell you he really earned his money.
• It was usually hard to applaud anything as there was only a nanosecond gap between pieces. Nevertheless, a splendid elongated version of Job’s Lament drew a lot of appluase and was the best appreciated piece on the night.
• Prevailing wisdom is that the dress code for these gigs is black, with an earnest facial expression. Bucking this trend, I wore my post-fashionable Montreal Canadiens t-shirt, which is usually only allowed out when I am perrforming on guitar. Most others there wore t-shirts/hoodies/whatever advertising their allegiance to a cult I had never heard of. But I saw no duplicates, posing the question of whether it’s a cult before it has two or more adherents.

Beyond that, I can report that the Coventry HMV Empire is one of the most comfortless venues I’ve ever been in, but it didn’t matter. I really hope they play Aberystwyth one day.