Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Could it be the beginning of the end? I briefly lost my bearings during Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s performance at Roseland Theater on Wednesday, March 9. Suddenly panicking after standing five feet from the center of the stage during the first hour of the octet’s rendering of its apocalyptic anthems, I was compelled to stagger through the tightly-packed audience of more than 1,000 to take refuge at the back of the room. I avoided falling two or three times by clumsily grabbing the shoulders of cultish fans of the post-rock band.
My hysteria may have been both physical and emotional. (The delirium certainly wasn’t chemically induced- among other factors, I’m abstaining during Lent.) Taking full advantage of Portland’s spectacular park system in addition to walking across town to the venue might have worn me out. The extreme volume- the concert was the loudest post-Covid event I’ve attended- heightened my fatigue.
The harrowing visuals and extreme sonic attack were similarly overwhelming. Terrifyingly punishing, GY!BE delivers unadulterated doom. The calamitous sensibility forged by the collective nearly twenty years ago has proven lamentably prescient. The unrelenting representation of end times smothered my life force. After being invigorated by the sublime thirty-minute guitar drone performed by the opening act Humming Amps Trio, GY!BE obliterated my joyful innocence. Fifteen hours later, I fear the damage inflicted is permanent.