Godspeed You! Black Emperor

It may have seemed strange, to those who have focused mainly on the darker, more apocalyptic sides of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's music, to see the word "hope" projected onto the screen behind them as both opening and closing statement of their Milan show, the second of only two dates the Québécois collective granted Italian audiences as part of the extensive tour marking their return after years of inactivity.

And who knows how many of the two to three thousand people packed into Live Club in Trezzo sull'Adda had secretly nursed the hope of one day witnessing a live performance again from a band that undeniably marked the turn between the Nineties and the 2000s.

There is, in fact, an understandable sense of occasion in the welcoming venue on Milan's eastern outskirts, a post-industrial cube with excellent acoustics and a (non-)place perfectly suited to hosting Godspeed You! Black Emperor's aphasic narratives, the images that accompany the music and, above all, the atmosphere that for two whole hours filled a cold winter night with noise and romanticism, with drive and passion.

It would be redundant in the extreme to list every single instrumental piece, every single moment of a concert of rare intensity that the eight musicians set out to offer an audience (large, adoring, composed) that had turned out to pay genuine homage to what the band gave us across the three albums released between 1998 and 2002. After all, it's almost hard to believe that a band inactive for so long, with no new releases on the horizon, can still draw such a crowd, such devoted attention. But with Godspeed You! Black Emperor's music, it's clearly, above all, a matter of the heart; for those who "lived" it ten or more years ago, as much as for those who discovered their exploits only later, perhaps after being drawn into the "emotional post-rock" melting pot during its brief moment of glory.

Being, precisely, a matter of the heart, the two-hour set can ideally be split into an hour of "warm-up" and an hour of releasing the tension, of surrendering to the pull of granite-like rhythms and roaring guitars, but also to delicate strings, liquid, shimmering sounds and crystallized field recordings soon recognized by the crowd and greeted with the same enthusiasm elsewhere reserved for riffs and build-ups heralding some kind of hit.

Curiously, with the exception of the previously unheard mantra "Albanian", the impact of the set tends to defuse the most powerful and immediate components of the band's sound, highlighting the progressive nature of compositions that slowly catch fire, whose most striking content lies not only in the explosive moments — which are, moreover, tightly controlled in their harmonic turns and finished with extreme care. If anyone still had doubts about the band's artistic standing, the iterations of "Moya" and "Dead Metheny", the spasms of "World Police And Friendly Fire" and the impetuous palette of "Gathering Storm" only underline further their uniqueness compared to artistic movements that share certain common traits, but that have also too easily slid into mere formal mannerism.

Watching the musicians on stage – silent, focused and intensely aware – you don't really think of just another post-rock band, but rather of a group of artists with a distinctive personality, who have turned the encounter between a chamber section and a double "rock" trio into something unique and compelling.

As the long tracks unfold, a flow of images unfolds alongside them: written texts, sepia-toned slides, glimpses of railways and flames spreading uncontrollably follow one another behind the eight musicians, as an integral part of a show meant to be experienced by tuning in empathically with all the senses, with something precious and unrepeatable.

So, when the two hours of the concert have by now carried the audience into an absorbing trance, a shiver runs down the spine from the very first notes of "East Hastings", a most fitting conclusion to a set that for long stretches delved into the roots of "F#A#∞". Flawless and beautifully incapable of communicating with the audience in any way other than through music, the eight musicians leave the stage one by one, letting distorted loops ring out along with the existential question "where are you going? where are you going?", which better than any word spoken into a microphone sums up the meaning of the evening and of having found Godspeed You! Black Emperor playing together again for two hours experienced like a half-closed-eyes dream. With hope clearly visible in the background.

Photo: Enrica Chimienti

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