Firstly, Godspeed You! Black Emperor absolutely brought the noise Thursday night at Granada. I don't know who opened for them, but they were awful. The audience recovered quickly, though, as soon as Godspeed began there was a respectful and awe-filled hush in the room (except for the dickhead in front of me reading his facebook feed off his phone. When I asked him to put it away, he replied, conscience-stricken, "you're right..."). I believe I counted nine or ten performers on stage, none of which seemed to need to communicate with any of the others throughout the course of the show, which was interesting. No one player appeared to be in charge of the direction of the music. They must be incredibly well practiced, or maybe just as awesome as we all think they are. The performance was incredibly powerful and rather emotional for me. I never thought I'd be watching this band live. I remember getting really into post-rock my senior year in highschool. Godspeed and A Silver Mt. Zion (who I saw in February of this year at Sons of Herman Hall- AMAZING) changed my life. I remember listening to Lift Your Skinny Fists after completing the S.A.T. and using Silver Mt. Zion tunes to soundtrack projects in my video classes. I would listen to them in the background while I wrote terrible poetry. I fucking love these musicians. I believe it was the 09-15-00 outro during their set that made me weep. Sad Mafioso from the song East Hastings (F♯ A♯ ∞) was quite possibly my favorite, and appropriately their closing performance. It had the potential to be both the loudest and softest piece they played and they pulled it off masterfully. A giant projection above the band flashed anarchist propadanda, mugshots, and burning buildings throughout the entire show. It was great. I had a freaking wonderful time.I'm not going to lie, I haven't really slept for days. I should have rested Friday night but I went out with friends (to a pretty bad local comedy act, sorry, Denton) and came dangerously close to closing the bar. I worked early Friday and Saturday mornings, taking the edge off my sleepiness with coffee. I worked my ass of Saturday setting up for the Spiderweb Salon show. I was terrified we were going to have to reschedule the show due to weather, but everything worked out in the end and I was so damn happy. I already blogged about this show on the {we, bees} blog, here! Check it out.
AND LAST NIGHT! DIE ANTWOORD! (I discovered that "die antwoord" means "the answer" in Afrikaans.) THIS SHOW WAS SO MUCH FUN. It was everything I wanted. They played my favorite song of theirs (Rich Bitch). Of course they blasted I Fink You're Freaky and played an exciting Enter the Ninja as their encore. On the way up my friend Conor and I were speculating what the crowd was going to be like. It turned out to be strange mix of all our hypothesis, a surprisingly older crowd (by which I mean, not many youngsters, mid-20 to 30s kind of group), a mix of geeky hipsters and average joes, with the occasional gaggle of scantily-dressed girls with fake tans who must have been expecting a dub-step rave experience... Of course Yo-Landi and Ninja were completely ridiculous and over the top the entire time, but there is something about them as a duo that I can only describe as cute. Sure, they're both grungy nasty weirdos but of course they are- those are their characters. They really have their shit together, the energy the produce is fucking awesome, and I really like their shtick. I may have been bashful to say that when I first started listening to them, but seeing them live brought it together for me and made a lot of sense. These are some creative people that a just having a fucking blast with what they are doing. It felt like they really appreciate their fans. I danced like a madwoman through the entire show. It was wild. I loved it! To make the night even better I spent some time with good Dallas friends that I don't get to see too often at a bar called Barcadia, one I've always wanted to visit. It didn't disappoint. Great falafel, too.
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