Godspeed You! Black Emperor glides through Liberty Hall

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
with Alan Sparhawk
Liberty Hall
Monday, November 11

What are the inner thoughts one experiences when one hears live music?

I often reflect on the turmoil that has surmounted me during recent times, maybe even years past – especially for a band like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose music “continues to say so much without saying a word,” according to Apple Music’s delightful description of their recently released eighth album.

I remember seeing Bruce Hornsby with my dad down at Knuckleheads when I was a kid. It was a trip I sort of wanted to make for an artist I sort of had my finger on, but not quite. I didn’t know much of the material, but my mind couldn’t help but wander into the unknown, into patterns of thought unbeknownst to me before that moment, reflecting on what had happened and what was to come.

There are those singing bands, ones like Anberlin and The National, my two personal favorites, the bands whose music you know every lyric to, and when you make the trip to see them perform the life story you’ve hummed along to your whole life, that is your vindication when you’re 50 feet away from them. But there’s something special, something that you can feel in your gut, that’s impalpable about the other ones, the ones you couldn’t scream along to, vocals or not. There’s a mutual understanding when you walk away, get in your car, and get in bed before you go to sleep.

I saw an old friend on this beautiful November night, a night that dipped into the high 40s upon the walk out from the historic Liberty Hall in Lawrence. We spoke about old times, about a job I hired him for a couple years ago, something that will always be there to talk about, even a decade from now. We both have this mutual understanding that this subculture of the music scene – one that leads you to places like Liberty, Lawrence’s Bottleneck, KC’s recordBar – is the definition of music itself, at least in the modern era. We both enjoy Tim Robinson, and Tim Heidecker. We both have a brother that guided our palettes in one way or another, brothers that were both there on Monday.

You could look around the venue that night and see a bunch of faces you thought you didn’t recognize, faces you thought weren’t at all faces that reminded you of looking in the mirror, but the truth is, we were all the same in that place that night. Maybe we all had that understanding of the rock ‘n’ roll subculture. Maybe we all like Tim Robinson.

A choir of voices couldn’t tell you that, but when Godspeed came rummaging in with a song off their new October record, one I will not attempt to name-drop for sense of time (I have to go to work), near 9:40 p.m., around 13 minutes into the giant haphazard and gargantuan blistering, I texted my friend, “God dude,” to which he quickly replied, “Yeah, this is insane.”

A man next to me kept up with Aidan Girt and Timothy Herzog’s aggressive drum pattern for a good long while, excessively romping his head down, then up, then down, then up, verifiably either exactly on-time, or dreadfully offbeat, but further cementing the stance I cross-examined all evening about that impalpable feeling in your gut.

Back to that Hornsby show. It was a top bleacher seat, also a weeknight, to the left of my dad (who was avoiding my uncle), passively nodding along to the beat and lyrics of a man I couldn’t quite understand. But often, my head was in the sky, letting the basic rhythms flow as naturally as possible, leading to an understanding in other areas of my life. My school life, my friends, my interests, my home life. Conclusions were easy to come to. I take that with me wherever I go.

I purposely went into November 11 without listening to the new Godspeed LP, not wanting even one listen to somehow sway that experience I so desperately wanted to replicate from my youth. Granted, this wasn’t the first time, but it felt like the right time. It’s something I felt a bit at Swans back in May (albeit there was not even a way to listen to most of those tracks), but it usually happens perchance.

I recently drove five hours to see my high school soccer team – a program I was a part of – in the state playoffs. I’m 28 years old and nostalgia could be as important to me now as it ever was. Days and moments are coming through the shadows, several during the two-hour journey provided from the longtime post-rockians. I’m surrounding myself and predicating my time with things that can provide this level of understanding about my life. This was just another one of those nights.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor setlist
Hope Drone
SUN IS A HOLE SUN IS VAPORS
BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD
RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD
Fire at Static Valley
PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS / GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS
First of the Last Glaciers
The Sad Mafioso (movement off “East Hastings”)