GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - Phoenix Crescent Ballroom - March 1st 2022

Shortly before going into tonight's show, a quick web search showed me that its been a few days short of twenty years since I last saw them (at Bradford St George's Hall). I have no memory of the support band that night but I doubt anyone will have the same issue about tonight in twenty years. The ferocious team-up of Tashi Dorji and Thom Nguyen is the stuff memories are made of. Thom's drumming was wild and intense, forcing me to rock back and forth as he crashed around his kit. Guitar wizard Tashi Dorji usually plays fairly quiet but tonight he was laying down some heaviness and even bashing his Guitar onto the floor. It was abstract, muscular and awe-inspiring. Godspeed You! Black Emperor really feel like they were made for these times. Their anonymous image lends itself well to the protective face Masks. The ranting conspiracy theorist on Slow Riot For Zero Canada tonight sounds like a prophet heralding the coming of the Q Cult. Tonight they really were a band of today even when they played an old song. The musical and emotional power is there, a wordless poem of the world we live in. Their pessimism about social economic model confirmed by the history we see unfolding. Losing yourself in their waves of sound is as much a balm for the modern world as it is a reminder of it. The machine has not yet run out of blood but we are all still trapped in it. My journey home past the walking wounded of the opioid epidemic confirms it. We need them more today than ever.