The show at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn last night was insane. Did anyone else go?
It was a great mix of hipsters, old school avant garde types, authentic goths types and just general weirdos attending.
I think the sound people did a good job accommodating the acoustics of the stone structure for the most part. It’s really a gorgeous building.
We sat up in the balcony for ‘Shadow of the Sun’. I’d never seen the film itself, only heard TG’s soundtrack. It’s a psychedelic art film and seems to be set in a post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear war (my interpretation).
TG came out with little fanfare, but the place went nuts. They proceeded to hunch over their gear and the film began to play on a projector over them as the house lights dimmed.
The soundtrack they performed was radically different from the one previously released and was just breathtaking. It started with a deep, throbbing drone that had the whole place vibrating, building up in pitch slowly to this screaming, unnerving train wreck of sound. Then the piece softened back down again and arabic synths emerged playing strange, haunting melodies, The piece continued to ebb and flow, softening up again before launching into a third movement, characterized by bizarre pitch shifted female vocal harmonies in multiple octaves.
The place erupted in applause when they were done and it seemed like we had been in a time warp as the house lights came back on for the signing. I had bought a new t-shirt for the tour along with a new CD available only for the tour so I decided to get that signed. It was bizarre, like waiting in line to meet the Industrial equivalent of the Beatles.
I couldn’t muster a word when Genesis, Peter, Chris and Cosey were signing my CD. Genesis is downright unnerving up close. (S)he just looks amazing. Awesome bizarre vintage clothes. Fingers bedecked with strange gold rings that looked like eyeballs. Half painted cracked orange fingernails. Truly a unique individual…like a modern day homeless transvestite sorcerer or something.
Cosey refused to sign my friend’s vinyl copy of The First Annual Report. All she said was “This is a bootleg”. (What is the deal with that anyway? Does anyone know? I thought it was official, but released after the 2nd and 3rd Annual Reports for some reason). My girlfriend had nothing for them to sign but a train schedule and Cosey laughed at that. Genesis looked at her and remarked that this was the best thing (s)he had signed all night. Eventually the crowd thinned and the signing was done. TG returned backstage and people waited with anticipation for their next performance, which would consist of songs throughout their catalog.
What followed was really confusing. A a simple throbbing syncopated synth note started playing on the speakers and gradually got louder, doubled, tripled and so on with delay. As this was happening a vertical bar of light appeared on the projection screen, growing more and more bright. Then another horizontal bar appeared, forming a cross shape. The house lights went out. The long and short of this is that this tedious, extremely loud display continued for about thirty minutes as a confused audience stood still, presumably all thinking what I was thinking; that this was some kind of intro for TG to retake the stage. The lights continued to strobe in simple flashing patterns that never led anywhere. No culmination and the noise was just this pulse repeated ad nauseum, building up with effects, and reducing back down, over and over. Finally it stopped and the house lights went on. People were extremely confused and several were shouting “assholes!” from the balcony, to which TG’s douchey stage manager responded with a middle finger and by flashing the set list to indicate that they would indeed play another set of material.
I was convinced this was some kind of audience experiment and that TG were sticking to their roots and had decided to provoke this new generation of fans. it turned out that some other guy was on the bill to perform and I guess was playing this monotonous crap from the back of the auditorium, so what most people thought was a bloated, tedious intro for the band gone far too long was actually someone else’s “performance”. It was the least enjoyable experimental live performance I have ever seen.
Finally TG took the stage and all of the house and stage lights were on. Genesis said a few words to the crowd and people were ecstatic. This band really is important to their cult-like following. I think one of their greatest legacies will be the mystique they were able to build around themselves, carefully cultivating legendary status even when they were first active.
Their first song was “Very Friendly” and, like all the others, it has been radically updated to match the digital post-industrial sound they’ve perfected with 2007’s ‘Part Two: The Endless Not’. Chris Carter’s deep, pulsing beat provided the undercurrent for the sonic maelstrom conjured by the band. Cosey Fanni Tutti resembled a senior member of Sunn 0))) in her black robe, injecting bursts of distortion from a modified slide guitar. Peter Christopherson was playing what looked like a flip phone that he flapped open and closed to create piercing digital static, and Orridge delivered a spoken word piece about murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley that was restrained at first, but broke to a manic pitch as the song progressed, with Orridge shouting the words and rocking back and forth.
The exact setlist isn’t clear in my mind. The atmosphere was intense and there was a lot of energy in the air. They played subterranean beat-driven material I’d never heard or didn’t recognize next. “Hamburger Lady” followed, completely updated and barely recognizable save for the lyrics. Gurgling drones filled the low end and the high synth notes were played by P. Orridge on some kind of horn. Other songs included a haunting rendition of “Almost a Kiss” and the title track from ‘Part Two: The Endless Not’ as well as more beat-driven material I didn’t recognize. One jam in particular was incredible, with Cosey ditching the slide guitar for a small horn and Peter alternating to a seated instrument to lay sound over a shifting, clicking Industrial groove. The band closed with an energetic, completely updated version of “Discipline”. Orridge was pacing around, yelling into the mic as the crowd throbbed up and down, proving that the band is still energetic and vital after all these years.
The only issues were some scattered sound problems. Orridge was playing an electric violin during one song which was barely audible, if at all. After another song, there was loud feedback after they stopped playing and it took the sound guy a minute to discover the source of the problem. Cosey displayed visible pain and Genesis stopped the set for a minute to make sure she was all right. Finally, there seemed to be an ongoing argument between the band and their manager about dimming the house lights, which were on throughout the show.
Regardless, the band was absolutely amazing live. Their Industrial sound has been completely modernized to match the digital age and they are perhaps as relevant as ever, creating psychedelic dance music from the future that sounds as fresh as their sonic experimental techniques did in the late 1970s.
They are playing a completely different setlist tonight at Le Poisson Rouge and I opted to see them again because they were so fucking good and this is such a limited opportunity. I can’t wait!
EDIT: Also the new CD they were selling is called ‘The Third Mind Movements’ and I’m listening to it now. I’ll post more about it and tonight’s show later!