I've been a fan of Swans for a long time, but they called it a day before I had the opportunity to see them live. At the time, Gira seemed pretty adamant that Swans really were dead, and complained that after years of slogging his guts out for next to no return, they weren't only dead but buried.
During their time away, Swans' legend - and fan-base - actually grew. Perhaps they had simply been that far ahead of their time, or perhaps the music world, saturated with preening emo bands, reverently hushed post-rock acts, indie wallpaper and lamecore rap and r'n'b, had a gaping chasm that only a band of Swans' sonic enormity could fill. Either way, their return earlier this year with the monumental 'My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky' was more than welcome.
Just as Gira was keen to state that this was NOT a reunion, so it was apparent that the live dates would be about the present, rather than the past. So many bands reform for the nostalgia, to trade on their history. Not so Swans. They were never going to churn out a greatest hits set, gurning and going through the motions to boost the bank balance. What's more, even without Jarboe in the current lineup, and having moved on from the spew-inducing, cranium-splitting hard volume of their heaviest periods, the new album proved that Swans had lost none of their intensity.
The set began with an empty stage, slowly pulsing drones emanating from the PA. Not your ordinary intro sequence for Gira and his cohorts to wander amiably on to: this fifteen-minute preamble was loud and unsettling, building tension and anticipation. Mighty warrior and percussionist Thor is the first to take the stage, and proceeds to hammer an industrial-size set of tubular bells, atop the drone. It's a further five minutes before the rest of the band appear, and collectively build a monumental cathedral of sound, a shuddering, heaving rendition of 'No Words / No Thoughts'. Half an hour after the first sounds, Gira finally delivers his first vocals of the set and eventually brings the first song to an end. Everyone in the auditorium is riveted. Climactic openings don't come any bigger than this.
Then it's straight into a thumping version of 'Your Property'. It might not have the sledgehammer weight of the original studio version, but this isn't to say it's by any means a lightweight or throwaway inclusion in the set for old time's sake. The older material - from the dark recesses of the band's extensive back catalogue emerge 'I Crawled', 'Sex God Sex' and 'Beautiful Child' - is radically reworked, pulled and stretched in all sorts of directions, teasing out new depths and new shades, to remarkable effect. These songs are not snapshots of history, but entities which are living, breathing, evolving and growing. That said, in many respects, the selection of songs is secondary: the set is constructed around lengthy instrumental sections - including a new, untitled instrumental - that build to extended crescendos.
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Norman Westberg is one cool customer: while the 'kids' are going nuts for fret-wankery and 'guitar hero' displays of virtuosity, Westberg makes the most incredible use riffs consisting of just one or two chords, bludgeoned into submission over the course of several minutes. He does it so nonchalantly, and the effect is mesmerising. On stage, however, all eyes are on drummer Phil Puelo, and the songs are built from the earth-shattering rhythm up.
From the new album, which provides the remainder of the material in a ten-track set, 'Eden Prison' was particularly powerful. As much has been made of Swans' brutality as the volume of their live shows. This was definitely loud, and sonic savagery was displayed in abundance, but countered by moments of fragility, lusciously layered and beautiful, Swans led the audience on a journey not of self-flagellation, but of reward, basking in the uplifting glory of art in its purest form.
They encore with 'Little Mouth' after which the audience filters out slowly. Many remain for a while, blinking, rooted to the spot, awed by what they have just seen: not a mere gig, but a real event.
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