Mum and Dad had seen them before, bhis was my first time seeing Godspeed and I was pretty confident it wasn’t going to be the last. Mum is a tiny bit obsessed with their music. The gig was at Camp and Furnace, which as venues go, was pretty damn cool and a cavernous yet magnificent place for gigs. It’s one of the hubs of the city’s Baltic Triangle area, which was once the backbone of the city’s shipping and other industries, but is now seeing its abandoned warehouses being revamped into venues like this one. The gig was one of the highlights of Liverpool Music Week… Canada’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor were in town to put on an epic post-rock spectacle.
Godspeed have a long history, forming way back in 1994 with core members Efrim Menuck, Mauro Pezzente and Mike Moya. They have built a fanatical almost cult-like following and fill venues all over the world on the reputation of their live shows and their five studio albums. For a few minutes, there is a pulsing from the empty stage, which gradually built in volume until it began to reverberate through your body. Gradually one by one the band members came on stage and joined with the music.
The sound they make is something special. It moves you both physically and emotionally. The film loops that back drop the stage for every track are incredibly clever and fit the music perfectly. The experience of seeing Godspeed is powerful and not easily forgettable. Starting at 9pm, they played pretty much the entire two hours up until the 11pm curfew and to put that into context, they played only nine songs, the middle of the set being the “Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress” album in its entirety. But it’s not like listening to nine different tracks, instead it feels like one long cinematic soundscape of varying tempos, volumes and moods. It’s just not like anything or anyone else and that is what sets them apart.