Concert

So I saw Godspeed You! Black Emperor last night at the Warfield with Justin. Probably the best concert I've been to so far (although I've only been to a few concerts), just for the sheer intensity of the performance.

I know there's this stigma of pretentiousness that goes with happening to be a Canadian post-rock band with obscure title references and songs that last more than 15 minutes, but honestly, that band felt like an experience in itself regardless. I tried listening to some of their songs on my ipod on the ride back, and it just felt like it paled in comparison to their live performance. Something about just seeing the band as they were in person, finally being able to attribute human figures playing instruments to the stuff I listened to a few years ago... it just changed my perception of everything.

A few firsts also... first time sitting down in a concert, first time not smelling weed... for the first half hour anyway, first time I can remember my thoughts actively going wild from seeing a performance? Usually I can focus on the music itself or whatever presentation or video that's going on in the background, but this show made me think about a lot of things I don't feel comfortable thinking about. Things that actually had nothing to do with the performance, and at points I remember thinking, why am I thinking about this here? I'm not really sure if it was even the music, or just watching people in the act of playing music, or just the wall of sound that they were generating through continuous feedback, or the weird repeating videos playing on the screen behind the band, or somehow the combination of it all?

GY!BE's music has this recurring trend of starting out really slow at the beginning and taking a long time, usually up to ten minutes, of just building up with crescendos and interplay between the band's instruments until it reaches climax after climax after exploding climax. And throughout the entire process, I just kept experiencing pangs of nostalgia. Remembering that this part of my life used to exist, that time when I first heard their music, those times when finding music like this was just a joy. Back in freshman year when I got really excited about seeing concerts for the first time with people, back when we used to have trips to places like SF just because it was there, saw musicals, just hung out a lot in general. And then I started remembering people I hadn't seen in such a long time, back when it was so easy to just go to a person's room and hang out with them because they lived down the hall from you. Maybe we didn't talk that much even then, but what I did remember of our interactions was good. And now after this semester, we're graduating.

Yeah, for some reason, watching them perform triggered all of this. It might've been just the fact that I hadn't listened to them in so long, and just the act of hearing music I hadn't heard in years brought all of this to the foreground. I dunno. To be honest, this post is less about the concert and more about things that I've been wrestling with on and off for a long while now. For a while now I've felt less inclined to think about what I might miss in the years to come, but every so often something like this comes up, and I can't help but reminisce.

The opening monologue to one of the songs they played at the concert (a recording of an elderly man speaking in the background) struck this feeling pretty well.

It was Coney Island, they called Coney Island the playground of the world.

There was no place like it, in the whole world,
like Coney Island when I was a youngster.

No place in the world like it, and it was so fabulous.
Now it's shrunk down to almost nothing...you see.

And, uh, I still remember in my mind how things used to be, and...uh, you know, I feel very bad.

But people from all over the world came here...
from all over the world...it was the playground they called it the playground of the world...over here.

Anyways, you see, I...uh...you know...
I even got, when I was very small, I even got lost at Coney Island, but they found me...on the...on the beach.

And we used to sleep on the beach here, sleep overnight..they don't do that anymore.
Things changed...you see.

They don't sleep anymore on the beach.