Tonight's climax, dearly beloved, was joyous transcendent music played with reverence and humility by four people making one sound that moves the soul and presses tear ducts. EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY were very good indeed, and were heard later declaring quietly that it had been the best gig of their much-praised current UK tour.
In the beginning, as far as your witness/narrator could tell, each member of the Texas band had withdrawn to a private space where each connected with the one river of pulse and harmony that courses through every moment of their music like a flood bringing health to parched lands. Once connected, they never strayed, never flinched, never looked up for directions. They played their hearts out, and inspired the (over) capacity audience to be better people from now till whenever. Their theme was redemptive and passionate. Things have been and are terrible and terrifying. These things will pass. We can live forever, even if we die tomorrow.
The effort these guys make is physical as well as spiritual. As the wordless tunes ebb and flow and roar the whole band go through spasms and dances of controlled but violent movement. The recurrent motif is a slow widening circular sweep, involving a synchronised movement of the three frontmen that crouches, arcs away left, reaches up over and round with guitars held forward like great carved shields, sweeping wider and wider swathes through a steadily clearing fog. As a crescendo peaks, right arms go up together and hammer down in repeated blows with clenched fists towards the howling pickups at the centre off the storm. Michael James, the bass player, adds an occasional and frightening palsied shake that seems to wrack his whole body uncontrollably. Spectacular is the very word. The records are fine enough, but this live show was something else again.
Mark Smith and Munaf Rayani play guitar; Chris Hrasky drums; and Michael James starts on guitar before reverting to bass. The music is simple but constantly changing with two chiming guitars swapping and entwining crystalline lead passages and sometimes swirling in background sheets of chords effects or ebow wails. Drums and bass are heartbeating and structural, putting in massive foundations for very large crescendos that grow imperceptibly. The whole show is a single piece, with only slight lulls where guitars are retuned or swapped. The tunes are taken from the two EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY albums, with embellishments and improvisations along the way. We're used, now, to an orchestral approach being adopted by guitar bands. Loud sections, quiet sections, tempo changes, thematic shifts and all the rest. The unique quality of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY is the wholeness of what they do. Things change, for sure, but they don’t stop and start as if the earlier ideas had simply lost their strength and the audience needed waking up. This felt like a long journey through territory that was full of surprises, but which was all joined together, and which was definitely leading us somewhere. The audience managed to find spaces to breathe, to cheer or to clap, but the final silence was the dramatic one. And however huge the cheer, there was not going to be an encore. That would be like going back to find something that had been dropped on the way. The audience was elated and thankful. It had been a very good night. All that was left was to sleep with a good conscience.
|
It had certainly started well with openers POLARIS. They play finely balanced near-jazz guitar music with effortless craftsmanship and loads of energy. Guitar counterpoint from Joe O'Sullivan and Andy Pollard is tumbled along by Leeds' top drummer Neil Turpin and scintillating bass player Johnny Ford. POLARIS are well known here in Leeds, and especially in the very cool Brudenell Social Club. Neil and Joe also turn out for the more renowned BILGE PUMP. They do some songs and some tunes and they get loads of enthusiastic reaction from the big crowd.
The tour's main support was BIKINI ATOLL who look and sound like stars and who do a set-full of varied and approachable songs with some very meaty instrumentation and Joe Gideon's richly menacing vocal delivery. A high point for me is "Cheap Trick", which easily lives up to the Iggy Pop styling in its main riff. Viva does a full noise attack from keyboard, also wielding guitar and various unnamed pieces of equipment to make things shake and rage as needed. Ché plays drums and Bastien Joel does some athletic and very sweaty bass on a beautiful Gibson instrument, that he isn’t afraid to use as a lead instrument when it suits. Based in London, but looking and sounding very American, they share UK record label Bella Union with EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY. Recommended.
|
